


These Precious Things

by RedRowan



Series: The Boxer's Daughter [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 01, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Matt Murdock, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Female Matt Murdock, Rule 63, girl!Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:05:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 69,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7340275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRowan/pseuds/RedRowan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should be perfect:  Mattie and Foggy have a home in their old neighborhood, an office for Nelson & Murdock, and even a wedding date.  But Hell's Kitchen is falling into crime and corruption, and the fight against it is being written in blood and broken bones.</p><p>There's a man at the top, and there'll be hell to pay when Mattie finds him.</p><p>Alternate Season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Why

Mattie’s not sure why she’s here, except that she has literally nowhere else to go. No-one except Foggy knows about her, and he refuses to talk about what she does in the mask. 

So, like a good Catholic girl, she turns to the Church.

After she’d left St Agnes’, she hadn’t gone to Mass for years, then, after the Battle of New York, she’d started going again, at first sporadically, then more regularly after they’d left Landman & Zack. She likes the priest here in Hell’s Kitchen; he’s thoughtful and witty in his homilies, and Sister Magdalena had spoken highly of him when Mattie had stopped by St Agnes’.

And the seal of confession is literally sacred, which suits Mattie fine.

Except that she hasn’t been to confession since she was eighteen, confessing about giving a blowjob, or something equally trivial. It’s a little more serious to tell a priest, “I put on a mask at night and beat up criminals.” Especially when the real confession is, “And I enjoy it.”

So she rambles, there in the confessional. She talks about her father, her grandmother, about letting the devil out. And Father Lantom doesn’t understand, he thinks she’s confessing something she’s done, but that’s not the point. She can live with what she’s done. But what she’s going to do, she needs forgiveness for that.

_Father, forgive me for letting the devil out tonight._

She’s been tracking the human trafficking ring for the past two weeks. It started when she found some thugs grabbing homeless kids off the street; she’d beat on one of the slower ones until he’d told her why. She’d listened to the street kids from the rooftops, heard rumours being passed around in the shelters about kids disappearing, and she’d put together the pattern.

She’d heard how the kids scattered when they heard Russian being spoken, or saw a van coming.

When she’d stopped the Russians from grabbing a teenaged girl from the steps of the tenement where she’d been squatting, she’d tried not to think, _that might have been me, once upon a time_. 

She’d followed the threads, and now she has a time and a location. Even if she didn’t know exactly where they were, they’re making enough noise to wake the dead.

It’s almost too easy, taking them down. 

Then the girls have run off, hopefully following her directions towards civilization, and there’s a goon at her feet, and she lets the devil out.

Foggy’s still up (Foggy’s always still up) when she gets home. He asks her the same question he always does: “Are you hurt?”

“Just some bruises,” she says.

He goes to the freezer and tosses her an ice pack as she takes off her shirt. She sits on the couch for a moment, pressing it to her ribs.

Her blood is still pumping, hot under her skin, and she wants nothing more than to tear his clothes off and throw him onto the bed. But they have a rule (she has a rule) that she doesn’t bring this…thing she is at night home with her ( _Don’t let it touch him_ ). And _definitely_ not into bed.

So she hits the shower instead, washing the scents of blood and the street off her skin, and he’s asleep by the time she comes out.

“Good morning, sunshine!” comes Foggy’s voice, right over her ear. She moans and lifts her middle finger at him, resisting the temptation to smack him in his smug face. She assumes it’s smug. He sounds smug. Is it possible to have a smug heartbeat?

“What time is it?” she asks her pillow.

“Half past get the hell up. C’mon, we gotta meet the real estate agent in forty-five.”

She groans as she flips over, throwing back the covers. She hears Foggy suck in a breath. He tries to do it quietly; she still hears it. He reaches over and puts his hand on her ribs where her camisole has ridden up.

“That looks…a lot worse than it did last night,” he says.

She bats his hand away.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m up, I’m up.” She hauls herself upright, ignoring the way her side aches.

Foggy sighs and says. “All right, shake it. Address is in your phone, meet me there in forty-five. I gotta go bribe a cop.”

Oh, _that’s_ why she smelled cigars in the apartment.

“Foggy…”

“Love you.” He leans over and kisses her, and then he’s gone. She resists the urge to flop back on the bed.

_Coffee. Coffee will make this all better._

She buys a cup on her way to the address Foggy had programmed into her phone, and it’s definitely not big enough, and it’s gone by the time she finds the building. She can hear Foggy and the real estate agent talking from the street as she throws the cup away, and she follows his voice to the unit on the second floor.

“…corner suite has a view of the Hudson,” the woman is saying. “You can flip a coin with your partner for it.” _Partner._ They’d agreed that they’d use the word “partner” when they were dealing with Nelson  & Murdock. “Fiance” was for their personal lives.

“Uh, he can have the view,” Mattie says as she steps into the office. It smells slightly of mold and mice, but no worse than any other office space they’ve looked at, and it feels warm the way rooms do when they have lots of sunlight.

“I’m so sorry. I-I-I didn’t mean to…” starts the agent.

“Of course not,” Mattie says kindly.

“Susan Harris, Midtown Property Solutions,” the agent says, holding out her hand.

“Mattie Murdock,” she says, putting down her bag by the door.

Susan laughs awkwardly, and bobs a little.

“She just curtsied. It was adorable,” says Foggy.

“Well, it’s nice to know chivalry isn’t dead,” says Mattie ironically. “Susan, would you mind walking me around this place?”

“Of course. My pleasure.” Susan awkwardly inserts her elbow into Mattie’s open hand, and they start moving through the space. “As I was telling your associate, this office was barely touched by the Incident,” she pronounces it with a capital I, “which is why it’s on the market already. The neighbors weren’t so lucky.”

“‘The Incident?’ Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Well, it sounds so much better than ‘death and destruction raining from the sky, nearly wiping Hell’s Kitchen off the map.’”

“Shorter, too.” Mattie thinks of a radio broadcast in a library full of fear, wondering if they would make it through the day alive.

“Owner figuring in the delightful view of cranes and scaffolding?” asks Foggy. “Feels like we’re getting pre-Incident prices.” His heartbeat whispers _lie_ to Mattie, but this is the kind of lie she loves, when Foggy’s wheeling and dealing and never backing down.

“They’re a quarter of what they used to be,” says Susan evenly. “Hell’s Kitchen’s on the rebound, Mr Nelson, and in eighteen months, you won’t be able to rent a broom closet at this price point.” She’s not lying, or at least she believes what she’s saying.

“We’ll take it,” says Mattie.

“Wha - We will talk about it, because we’re not sure we can afford even this palace, unless we make some changes to our current clientele policies,” says Foggy quickly.

_Really? Now?_

“My partner and I are having some disagreements over the direction of Nelson & Murdock,” says Mattie smoothly. And because she can’t back down on this: “I believe we’re here to defend the innocent.”

“And I believe the innocent includes everyone not yet convicted of a crime. You know, as the law states.”

“He tends to use fancy terminology.”

“And my _partner_ fails to recognize that, as defense attorneys, we’re never going to be able to keep the lights on, waiting on a horde of innocent souls to stumble into our loving arms.”

“At this point, I’d settle for just one,” sighs Mattie.

Susan laughs awkwardly.

“I have the paperwork ready to go, if you want to sign?” she says hopefully.

“Could you give us a minute?” says Foggy.

“Of course.” Mattie hears her step out into the hall, and Foggy pulls her into the second office and closes the door.

“Seriously?” he says.

“What?” Mattie says.

“What happened to making decisions together?”

“You _made_ your decision, you _like_ this place,” she says, completely reasonably.

“What - did you do the heartbeat thing?”

“No. You were _haggling_. You wouldn’t have bothered if you didn’t want this one.” _I know you, Nelson._

And Foggy makes that sound he makes when he’s smiling broadly, and he’s pulling her into a hug. 

“I _do_ like it. I can see… _us_ here.”

“Then why wait?”

Foggy sighs, and kisses her hair.

“No reason at all,” he says. They break apart. “Wait. Usual run-down. Mold?”

“Some, not bad. We can probably spray it.”

“Mice?”

“Few traps should take care of them.”

“Roaches?”

She sighs. “Never ask about roaches.”

“Damn. Pipes?”

She sniffs. “Old, but decent condition. Nothing toxic, anyway.”

He looks around. “Windows?”

“Drafty. They’re old.”

“Heating bill won’t be pretty in the winter.”

“It wouldn’t be better anywhere else.”

He cups her cheek with his hand. “Do _you_ like it?”

“Yeah, I like it.” And he’s kissing her, and she knows she has a stupid grin on her face when he stops.

“Nope, wrong face. We need to make it look like you dragged me into this.”

“I _did_ drag you into this.”

“That’s the spirit!” He takes her hand and leads her out into the main reception.

Foggy gets them a discount on their first six months’ rent.

They take possession the next day, and Foggy’s dad lends them some folding tables and chairs until they can buy proper furniture. By five, they’ve given the place a decent clean, got tables set up in each of their offices (“It’s _technically_ a desk.”), and most of their boxes brought in. Mattie is about to ask where Foggy wants to order dinner from when he picks her up and sits her on his “desk,” fitting between her knees and sliding his hands under her t-shirt.

“So…how much banging are we going to be doing in here?” he whispers against her ear.

“Um…as the person responsible for HR, I’m saying none,” she says, pushing him into the chair behind him. She crosses her legs.

“Since when are you in charge of HR?” 

“Since you decided you wanted to bang in the office. Sexual harassment is a very serious problem, Foggy.”

“Not even once?” he wheedles, stroking her knee. “We’re technically not even open yet.”

“Nope.” They had a rule at Landman & Zack, and it served them well. And if they’re going to be serious about this, they have to stay professional. They _talked_ about this.

“Can I harass you at home?”

She grins. “Absolutely.”

They get Chinese takeout on the way home, and it sits on the counter getting cold while they strip off their dusty clothes and fall into bed. Mattie grips the headboard as Foggy lifts her legs onto his shoulders and presses his face between them, moving his tongue _so damn slowly_ that she’s soon begging him to _just go faster, Foggy_.

 He ignores her. She tells him she hates him.

She loves him.

While they’re eating their reheated takeout, he asks her if she’s going out tonight.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” she says, nudging his leg with her foot.

“Good,” he says, and she knows he’s smiling.

“I _definitely_ have a better idea.”

Foggy’s phone goes off around midnight, when they’re falling asleep, which is a good thing, because they probably wouldn’t have answered it if they were in the middle of having sex. Foggy looks at the screen and chuckles smugly.

“It’s Brett,” he says. He presses the screen. “Hey, buddy.”

“Homicide,” says Brett on the other end of the line. He sounds tetchy, but when does he not? “Female suspect found at the scene. Definitely qualifies as interesting.”

“She’s been charged yet?”

“Assistant D.A. hasn’t made the call yet."

“Do you have a name on the suspect?”

“Yeah. Page. Karen Page.”

“We’ll be down in thirty.” Foggy presses the screen again, and the call ends. “You got that?”

“Homicide sounds fun,” Mattie says.

“Suspect found at the scene. Statistically, she’s probably _guilty_.” He pokes her shoulder on the word. She bats his hand away.

“Why don’t we go down and see what she has to say?”

So it’s suits on, hair combed, quick debate over whether Foggy needs to brush his teeth (“Ginger beef, Foggy - not a great first impression.”), and they’re down at the station, Foggy getting the lowdown from Brett while Mattie faces off against Detective…Blake, was it? She makes a mental note of that. Blake caves bitterly after wasting almost an hour of their time, but he lets them into the interrogation room and, for show, Foggy fills Mattie in on the case details while they’re walking down the hall.

Inside the interrogation room, Mattie can hear one frightened heartbeat. She remembers the police wisdom she’d read in a David Simon book. _Innocents stay awake. Guilty parties fall asleep._ This girl is wide awake, and terrified. When Blake opens the door, the smell of fear, blood, and tears rolls off the girl. There’s a clink of metal as she turns to look at them.

“OK, can we please take the handcuffs off the hundred-and-ten-pound woman?” Foggy says.

“Miss Page, can you tell me who these people are?” says Blake.

“We’re her lawyers,” snaps Mattie. “Uncuff our client and give us the room, please.” Blake’s breathing changes as if he’s about to argue with her, but he catches himself and instead unlocks the cuff connecting Karen Page to the table. “Thank you, Detective,” Mattie says sweetly as Blake passes her. He stops, almost right in her face, but leaves before he says anything. Once the door is closed, Mattie hears him say “bitch” under his breath. _Right back at you, Detective._

They learn three important things about Karen Page.

One: She’s not an idiot. Even in her dire straits, she’s wary enough not to trust them off the bat, and when she tells them her version of events (that she asked Daniel Fisher out for a drink, then woke up to find him dead in her apartment), she knows how guilty she sounds.

Two: She’s broke. Foggy tries to leave, but Mattie stops him, wishing she could telepathically tell him “Might as well take the case if we don’t have any _other_ clients anyway.”

Three: She’s innocent.

“I didn’t kill him,” she says, and her heart says she’s telling the truth.

“I believe you, Miss Page,” Mattie says with as much compassion as she can, and she squeezes Foggy’s wrist. He nods, and it’s more for Mattie’s benefit than Karen’s. He’s on board.

They tell Karen they’ll be back as soon as they have any news, and spend Sunday waiting for the call that she’s been charged.

“I’m friends with Gary Feinstein in the DA’s office, I’ll give him a call first thing in the morning, see where their heads are at,” Foggy is saying, tossing his baseball. “You know we’re going to have to recommend that she takes any deal that’s offered, right?”

“We can’t recommend that in good conscience, Foggy.”

“She’s the sole suspect, found at the scene, covered in blood, with the murder weapon and no defensive wounds. Unless your hearing suddenly became court-admissable, we don’t _have_ any evidence to the contrary. We can talk them down to manslaughter, she’ll be out in five to ten -“

“We’re not taking a deal.”

“It’s better than murder two and fifteen to life! We do _not_ want this to go to trial.”

“ _They_ don’t want this to go to trial, either. Why hasn’t she been charged yet?”

“They have twenty-four hours. And it’s the weekend. They’re going to take every last second to collect the evidence before they move.”

“They’ve got the evidence, you just laid it out yourself. On the surface, this is a good arrest.”

“Except she didn’t do it.” Foggy leans against the window next to Mattie’s office door.

“And the only ones who are _supposed_ to know that are you, me, and Karen Page.”

Foggy pauses. “All right. Fine. But let’s put the conspiracy theories aside and start with the obvious. Karen Page didn’t kill Daniel Fisher. So who did? We’re dead in the water if we don’t give them an alternative.”

“Agreed.”

“We need to take another run at our client.” The baseball lands in his hand, and he holds it. “When we were talking, was she telling the truth?”

“She was about not killing him.”

“Yeah, but the rest of it, her story about asking him out, all of that?”

Mattie thinks. “Not all of it. There’s definitely more she’s not telling us. But -“

“What?”

“She smelled odd. Like, her body chemistry was off.”

“OK, creepy phrasing aside -“

“Shut up.”

“You think she was drugged?”

“Maybe?” Mattie flips open the file and runs her fingertips over the printed pages. “Did they do a drug test when they arrested her?”

“Don’t think it’s standard procedure.”

“We should get one done right now. It’s been less than forty-eight hours since she blacked out, the drugs would still be in her system. If she was drugged, it would corroborate her statement.”

“Or they could argue that she killed him while she was high,” Foggy grumbles. “Or that she took them after she killed him.”

Mattie grins at him. “C’mon, this at least gives us _something_ to work with.”

Foggy sighs. “Yeah. It’s all we’ve got. OK,” he says, all business. “First thing in the morning, I’ll call Gary, you get that drug test set up, then we head down and have another talk with Miss Page.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“You going out tonight?”

Mattie cocks her head toward window, and lets down her layers of filters. The sounds of Hell’s Kitchen seep through her.

“I don’t think I have to,” she says, and she _feels_ Foggy relax across from her.

“Then let’s go home.” It’s not like they have a landline set up in the office yet, anyway, so any calls will go to their cellphones.

Their phones are silent as they stay up. As of eleven, Karen Page has been in custody for twenty-four hours, and has not been charged. When the deadline passes, both Foggy and Mattie go into high alert.

“What the hell kind of game are they playing?” says Mattie.

“They can still charge her,” says Foggy.

“Based on what? New evidence? The ADA has everything they need.”

“Let’s…not jump to conclusions, buddy.”

“There’s something not right about this case.”

“But as long as she’s not being charged, it’s not our problem.” There’s a pause, and she knows he’s looking at her. “Don’t even think it.”

“What?”

“About going out…you know…and digging into this.”

“I wasn’t thinking that!” She’d only…considered it.

“You were! You were totally -“ Foggy sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “OK, ground rule for Nelson & Murdock? You don’t get involved…like that…in any of our cases.”

“Yeah, OK. That’s totally fine.”

“Promise.”

She takes his face between her hands. “I promise.” He nods, and kisses one of her palms. She slips her fingers through his hair.

“Guess we don’t have anything to do until we can pick her up in the morning,” says Foggy.

“Guess not.”

“We _could_ get some sleep.”

She runs her hand down his tie and tugs on the end, pulling him into a kiss. “But that would be the _responsible_ thing to do…”

The kiss turns into full-on making out on the couch, which leads to Mattie slipping her hand down Foggy’s pants, and then they stumble together into bed, shedding clothes along the way. He has her on her elbows and knees, and every movement brings down another one of her carefully-constructed walls until the world on fire is blazing with sensation, stretching out further and further into the darkness. And all the while, she can feel his heartbeat inside her, and its rhythm whispers “I love you.”

His phone wakes them up at two-thirty, and she’s going to _murder_ Brett Mahoney.

“Hey, buddy,” Foggy says sleepily. “Let me guess - another lovely young innocent needs our help?”

“Same one. Your client was nearly murdered in her cell fifteen minutes ago.” There’s a dullness to Brett’s voice, not his usual exasperated tone.

“ _WHAT?_ ” Foggy’s sitting bolt upright, and Mattie’s already pulling on a fresh pair of underwear, not bothering to figure out which clothes on the floor are which.

“One of the - it’s -“ Brett sounds _upset_ , which is never something Mattie has ever associated with him. “One of the guards tried to strangle her,” he says in a rush.

“We’re on our way.” Mattie tosses Foggy a fresh pair of boxers and pulls a clean shirt out of the closet for him as she hears him hang up. “What the _hell_ is going on with this case?”

“I _told_ you there was something weird going on.”

“Yeah, the super-senses strike again.” 

She finds a blouse that smells halfway decent for herself and pulls it on.

“It’s not the - super-senses,” she says. She hates that term, it makes her sound like some sort of comic book character. “You saw it too, it wasn’t adding up.”

“Yeah, and now someone’s tried to kill our client.”

“And why would they do that?” Mattie stops, her skirt in her hand. “They had everything they needed to put her away, why try to kill her instead?”

“The same reason someone killed Daniel Fisher?”

“So… it’s a conspiracy, now?” Mattie’s grinning.

Foggy sighs as he stands up. “OK, yes, it’s looking like a conspiracy. Best theory?” He starts pulling on some pants. “Daniel was into something, they kill him, frame Karen, and then try to tie up loose ends by killing her.”

“Then why didn’t they kill her when she was blacked out with him?”

Foggy pauses to think. “Because if _she’s_ a suspect, nobody looks for another one.”

“Then why bother killing her once she’s a suspect? She gets charged, she disappears into the system.” Mattie cuts herself off, her jacket halfway up her arms. “Unless they never wanted her to be charged.”

“What? What am I missing?”

“Maybe someone else was in her apartment that night. Maybe they have evidence.”

“That’s Brady material. They’d have to turn that over.”

“Only if she were charged. She dies in her cell, _especially_ if they make it look like a suicide, this all goes away.”

Foggy lets out a long breath. “Let’s get her some clothes and get her the hell out of there.”

By three, they’re sitting across from Detectives Blake and Hoffman in an interrogation room, requesting (demanding) Karen Page’s release. Blake and Hoffman try to sidestep any questions about the actual attack, and Mattie loses patience.

“Get my client released. Don’t make me ask again,” she says in a tone that freezes them in their seats.

Hoffman leans over and whispers in Blake’s ear, “Go ahead, I’ll put in the call.” Which is strange, because Blake stands up and says to Mattie:

“I’ll call the ADA.” He leans over the table, trying to intimidate her, which she finds a little amusing, since she’s not supposed to be able to tell what he’s doing. “But you take that tone with me again, little girl, I don’t care if you’re blind, I’ll put you over my knee and teach you what’s what.”

There’s dead silence as the other two men in the room realize that, yes, _he just said that_. Mattie keeps her face impassive; it’s always better to let assholes dig themselves into whatever hole they’re creating.

Foggy’s the first to recover. “Wow,” he says. “Did you _want_ us to add sexual harassment to that civil suit? Because that can happen.” Blake and Hoffman leave without another word. “That was gross.”

“Welcome to my life,” says Mattie absently as she listens to _both_ Blake and Hoffman making calls about Karen Page’s release. Blake is talking to the ADA, that much is clear. Hoffman is talking to someone else, and Mattie can’t put together who it is. Foggy’s hand on her shoulder makes her jump.

“Whoa, sorry. Where’d you go?”

“Hoffman’s making a call about Karen’s release,” she says, standing up. “Can’t figure out to who.”

“ADA, right?”

She shakes her head. “Blake’s making that call.”

“Higher up?”

“Maybe.” She feels like the answer is right there, just out of her grasp.

“C’mon, let’s go collect Karen.”

The EMT is finishing up with Karen when Brett takes them to her cell; Mattie can hear from the way the blood flows that she has bruising around her throat, and it’s swollen and sore, but, thankfully, her trachea wasn’t damaged. _He hesitated. He didn’t want to kill her._ Foggy gives her Mattie’s t-shirt and sweatpants, and Brett lets her use the bathroom to change. Then they’re in a cab back to the office, all three of them squashed into the back seat, nobody quite sure what to say. Foggy reaches over and takes Mattie’s hand.

It’s just starting to rain as they get to the office. Foggy puts on the coffee machine they’d just unpacked this morning while Karen sits in the main room. Mattie can feel her brow furrowing as she hears him unwrap a small packet, and then she smells tea, not coffee.

“Couldn’t find any milk. I hope it’s OK,” says Foggy, handing Karen a hot mug.

“We have tea now?” says Mattie. They definitely didn’t have tea this morning.

“I stole it from the financial office next door,” says Foggy unapologetically. _Franklin Nelson, criminal mastermind._

They haven’t talked about what to do once they got Karen out of police custody. How they should approach the case, how they should deal with a client who hasn’t been completely up front with them. Mattie decides to go with the “lay it out, professionally” approach.

“Do you know who’s trying to kill you?” she asks after some back and forth.

“No,” says Karen.

“Do you know why they’re trying to kill you?”

There’s a pause. “Yes,” she whispers.

While Mattie had expected that to be true, she hadn’t expected Karen to actually _say_ it. But it makes their job a lot easier.

They have Karen record her statement, detailing her work at Union Allied, her discovery of the “pension fund,” and the involvement of Daniel Fisher. Her voice is hoarse, but her heartbeat never falters. When she starts talking about the murder, she breaks down.

“I have to get out of here, I’m sorry,” she says, rushing for the door. Foggy blocks her way.

“We can’t advise that, Miss Page,” he says.

“No, you don’t understand, either you’re with them, or you’re not. And if you’re with them, then I’m dead already. And if you are not, then I cannot have anybody else die because of me.”

“We can protect ourselves, Miss Page,” says Mattie dryly. Well, she can protect Foggy, it’s practically the same thing.

“No, you can’t, not from them.”

“Miss Page -“ starts Foggy.

“No.”

“We can’t let you go home.”

“Please!” she explodes. “Just…” And then she’s crying, real sobs, and Foggy puts his arms around her.

“You can stay with us,” says Mattie. “We have a sofa bed.” Foggy’s turning his face to her. “Just for tonight, until we figure something out. We’ll keep you safe, Karen.”

Karen lifts her head and turns her face to Mattie. “We?”

“We live together,” says Foggy. “Engaged, actually.” Mattie holds up her left hand, showing her Foggy’s great-grandmother’s ring. Karen pulls away from Foggy and sits back down.

“Oh.”

“Probably should have mentioned that,” says Foggy. “Not that - we’re still figuring out how to drop that into conversation.”

“But, we can all look out for each other,” says Mattie. “Just for tonight.”

So they all head out into the rain, since it’s almost four in the morning, and the apartment isn’t far anyway. Unfortunately, it’s one of those heavy storms that has the rain pouring down, and they’re all soaked to the skin by the time they’re inside. Mattie’s hair is dripping down the back of her neck, and she can feel _every single droplet_ as it slides down her skin.

“I think we still have some leftovers from dinner,” Foggy is saying as they lead Karen into the apartment. “It’s mostly takeout, neither of us are much for cooking, and I’m just going to tidy the place up?” He starts moving _very_ fast over to the couch, and Mattie remembers that they’d just thrown their clothes to the floor earlier in the evening.

“Uh, want some food?” says Mattie, supposing that she ought to distract Karen before the other woman gets _too_ good a look at what Foggy’s tidying up.

“Uh, no, I’m not…would you have a shirt I could borrow, maybe?” says Karen. “This one’s a little wet, and I’m a Hellions fan.”

“Don’t tell Foggy,” Mattie says with a chuckle, while at the same time Foggy says, “What did she say?” because he has hearing better than Mattie’s when it comes to his beloved Bolts.

“Nothing!” calls Mattie. “Can you grab one of my t-shirts for Karen?” She turns back to Karen. “I hope we’re the same size, I can’t really tell.”

“It’ll be fine.” Mattie leads Karen into the living room while Foggy dumps their clothes in the bedroom. “Can I ask a personal question?”

“I haven’t always been blind,” says Mattie with a smile.

“I guess that’s what everyone wants to know.”

“That or, ‘How do you do your makeup?’” says Foggy, coming back with dry clothes in his hands. “She gets that one a lot. Here.” He hands Karen two pieces, one of which, from the texture, is a towel.

“Thanks. How _do_ you do your makeup?” says Karen.

“I really just wear lipstick,” says Mattie.

“Good genes,” says Foggy, waving a hand in her direction.

“And I have a fiance who’s willing to tell me when I look insane.” Also a fiance who’s willing to put concealer on her more obvious bruises.

“Bathroom’s the door on the left,” says Foggy. “If you want to change.”

“Oh, thanks.” Mattie hears Karen pick her way through the living room and close the bathroom door.

“Got you a new shirt, too,” Foggy says, holding it out to her with a towel. “Yours is a little…see-through right now.”

“You complaining?” Mattie teases.

“No, but you might scandalize Karen.”

She peels off her shirt, and Foggy gives her a towel first. She squeezes out her hair and runs the towel over her skin, and she’s just about to pull on the t-shirt when the bathroom door opens.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” comes Karen’s voice as she quickly closes the door again.

“No, it’s OK!” says Mattie. “I should have done this in the bedroom.” She pulls the t-shirt over her head. “It’s safe now.”

The bathroom door opens slowly, and Mattie can tell Karen is peeking her head out.

“Sorry,” says Foggy. “We are totally professional lawyers.”

“Right,” says Karen, stepping back into the living room.

“Foggy, why don’t you grab those sheets for Karen?” says Mattie.

So Foggy pulls out the guest sheets (really, his old ones from law school) while Mattie and Karen move the coffee table out of the way.

“Do you mind if I ask _you_ some questions?” says Mattie as they’re pulling the cushions off the sofa.

“Uh…” There’s a long pause. Karen nods.

“She just nodded,” supplies Foggy from the other side of the room.

“Uh, yeah, go ahead,” says Karen.

“OK,” says Mattie. “Here’s what I don’t understand.” She tugs at the sofa bed, and it unfolds in her grasp. “I’m the man in charge of the pension funds, and I find out that one of my secretaries has discovered my illicit activity.”

“Sheets,” says Foggy, putting them in her hand. He goes back to the wardrobe, she can hear him pulling out a blanket and pillow.

“Thanks. To make matters worse, she’s now telling people about said activity.” She puts down the pile of sheets on the armchair, and unfolds one of them. Karen takes the other side. “Which, obviously, I can’t have.” They lay the sheet down on the bed, and Karen starts tucking it in. “So I decide to take action. But why don’t I kill you?” Karen stops.

“They tried,” she says.

“Yeah, the second time. In the jail.”

“But the first time,” says Foggy, “they left you alive.” He shrugs. “Why? I just shrugged, by the way.”

“What were they trying to do? Frame you?” Mattie leans over and tucks in her side of the sheet. “Now, the second time, maybe that’s a change of plan. Something doesn’t go their way, something sloppy at the crime scene.” She holds out her hand, and Foggy puts the second sheet in it. She unfurls it over the bed, and Karen catches the other side. “Two lawyers show up out of the blue before their people can get to you. So they figure, OK, maybe Karen hangs herself in her cell, and this thing gets swept under the rug. But the first time…” She tucks in the bottom of the sheet.

“The first time, they’re not trying to kill you,” finishes Foggy, who is fitting a pillowcase over the spare pillow.

“They’re trying to discredit you,” continues Mattie. “They’re trying to scare you. And the only reason that they would do that…is if you have something they want.” Foggy passes her the pillow. She lays it at the head of the bed. “So, I’ve been trying to think about what that could be, and the only thing I’ve come up with…is the Union Allied pension file.”

Karen’s heart is beating fast, a rhythm of fear.

Foggy passes Mattie the blanket, and she flicks it out it over the bed.

“Did you keep the file, Karen?” she says.

“No,” says Karen, and her heart says, _lie_. “As soon as I asked my boss about it, he took it away from me.” She fiddles with the blanket, smoothing it out unnecessarily. “The IT guys, they came and they wiped the computers. Believe me, a part of me wishes I’d made a copy for myself. But I guess I’m just not that smart.”

Mattie listens to her heartbeat, and part of her is relieved that there’s _something_ out there that they can use.

“Ah, well, it was just a thought,” she says. “Hope the sofa bed is comfortable.”

“Thanks,” says Karen.

Foggy slides the bedroom door closed behind them, and immediately steps up to Mattie, and whispers in her ear. “She’s lying, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” she whispers back.

“What are we going to do?”

“Wait and see.” She has no intention of sleeping tonight, not if someone has already tried to kill Karen in the last two hours. And especially if Karen isn’t telling them the truth.

It’s only fifteen minutes after Foggy turns out the light that she hears Karen getting up and leaving the apartment.

“She’s gone,” she says, nudging Foggy, who was dozing.

“What? Where?”

“Presumably to get her copy of the file.” She opens the bedroom door and goes to the wardrobe.

“Wha - no, we had a ground rule!”

“Foggy, if you already tried to kill Karen once tonight, what would you do?”

He pauses and thinks. “I’d wait for her to go back to her apartment to get the copy of the file. Dammit!” He pauses again, and she knows he’s looking at her. She spreads her arms. _See?_ “Right, forget the ground rule, it was stupid anyway. Go save the girl.”

She changes into the suit, and when she’s halfway up the stairs, he stops her.

“What should I tell her if she comes back before you do?” he says.

“Tell her I went out to look for her.”

“You realize how stupid that sounds?”

“Make something up, then!” And because she doesn’t have any more time, Karen could be in danger _right now_ , she runs up the rest of the stairs and out onto the roof.

Karen’s apartment isn’t far. Mattie lands on the roof, and slides down the fire escape to Karen’s floor, letting herself in through an unlocked hall window. She can hear two heartbeats inside Karen’s apartment, and smell the blood that was spilled inside. Nothing fresh yet. Then she hears a scream and the sound of bone hitting drywall, and the telltale click of a switchblade.

She throws open the door.

Whoever they’ve sent to kill Karen, he knows what he’s doing. Mattie feels her stomach drop out as he takes the first swipe at her with the knife, and realizes that up to this point, she’s never fought anyone who could match her.

Not that this guy can match her.

She thinks.

He grapples with her, slashing when he can, and she’s on the defensive.

_Oh, shit._

She rains blows on his face, fast and furious, while avoiding the knife, but every time she manages to send him crashing to the ground, he’s up again, slashing at her, until she has to run up a wall to maneuver herself around his back. She gets an arm around his throat, a hand around the wrist with the knife, and he throws them both backwards out the window.

There’s scaffolding outside, which is why Mattie doesn’t die from the fall. Instead, she slides off the wet platform and winds up face down on the pavement, tasting blood in her mouth.

Karen’s would-be killer’s heart is still beating, she can hear him climbing down from the scaffolding, and she’d _promised_ Foggy she would always come back to him.

_It ain’t how you hit the mat, it’s how you get up._

And every muscle in her body is protesting that they would like to stay here in this puddle, thank you, Mattie. She spits out blood. _The mind controls the body._ She pushes herself to her hands and knees.

The guy runs at her, thinking she’s vulnerable, and she takes him out at the knees. He falls forward into the scaffolding, but he’s still going, swinging at her, and finally throwing her to the ground with his hands around her throat. She strikes up with her knee between his legs, and Stick would _definitely_ not approve of _that_ move.

Stick isn’t here.

They’re both tired and hurt, and they’re both getting sloppy as she throws the guy off of her, and they trade blows on the ground. The guy manages to get the knife back, and she breaks one of his arms (after she learns that he’s ambidextrous with the knife. _Asshole._ ). There’s a chain hanging from the scaffolding behind her, and it’s long and loose enough to be of use, so she backs towards it, and he lunges at her. She wraps the chain around his neck and arm, pinning the knife-arm to his chest, and then pummels him before she jumps and kicks him in the head. Just to be sure.

She lands on her side, and Foggy is going to _freak out_ when he sees her.

She considers just lying there in the rain for a little while, it’s not so bad, when she realizes she has an audience: Karen, bleeding from the side of her head, shaking like a leaf. Mattie gets to her feet, and goes through the asshole’s pockets. If he was about to kill Karen, he must already have the file.

“Who…” says Karen. Mattie finds the USB and holds it up, backing away from Karen. “What the hell?”

“I’ll get this into the right hands,” she says, and her voice is low and raspy from being strangled, and _God_ , her throat hurts. She has a brand-new sympathy for Karen. She turns to walk away.

“No, you can’t. You can’t take it to the police. You can’t trust anyone.”

Mattie turns back. “Then we tell everyone.” Because that’s what they’ve been most afraid of, ever since Karen found the file: publicity.

Karen gives her an envelope and packing tape, and they seal the USB into the envelope; Karen says that the USB has both the original file and annotations. Mattie uses the tape to tie the asshole’s hands together and to attach the envelope to him. As she hoists him onto her shoulders, she tells Karen to go to a hospital and get her head checked out. She hopes that will buy her enough time to get home before Karen does.

The New York _Bulletin_ ’s offices aren’t far, just off Times Square, but every step hurts, and it feels like the ground is slipping under her, and it’s a relief to dump the asshole onto the steps. Then it’s up to the roofs and home, and Foggy’s waiting for her, phone in his hand.

“Karen just called,” he says. “Called _you_ , actually. Said she’s at the hospital, someone attacked her at her apartment, and a woman in a mask saved her life.”

“Amazing what can happen in New York,” Mattie deadpans, pulling off the mask.

“Are you hurt?”

“Yeah.” She knows she’s going to be black and blue tomorrow, and there’s a slash on her shoulder that will need butterfly strips. She stumbles on the last step, and Foggy runs forward and puts his arms around her, ignoring the fact that she’s dripping on the floor.

“You did good,” he says against her hair.

“Ow,” is all she can say, because he’s squeezing her too hard.

“Sorry.”

He goes to get the first aid kit.

“Does Karen want us to go down to the hospital?” Mattie calls as she peels off the wet shirt. There’s a gaping hole in it now, she’ll have to throw it out. She follows Foggy into the bathroom.

“No, she says she thinks she’ll be OK. What happened?” He tosses her a towel as she sits on the side of the bathtub.

“The guy - the one trying to kill her - he slammed her head against the wall. I think she’s got a concussion, but I wasn’t paying much attention.” Foggy breaks an ice pack and she presses it against the worst of the bruising as he starts swabbing at her back. “She was walking and breathing, so I figured she was pretty OK.”

“Yeah, she sounded…I mean she sounded pretty shook up, but a lot less scared than she did before.”

“Good.” _People like Karen shouldn’t be scared._

“Did she get the file?” He starts putting the butterfly strips over the cut.

“Yeah. But I actually took it - sent it to the _Bulletin_. Attached to the guy who tried to kill her.”

“How very _Dark Knight_ of you.”

“I have my moments.”

Foggy’s done with the butterfly strips, so he peels off his gloves. His hands are warm against her cold skin, and she leans back against him. He folds his arms gently around her, and she listens to his heartbeat. _It’s OK. I’m home._

Karen comes back to the apartment around seven, smelling of old sweat and antiseptic. Mattie and Foggy are actually asleep, and they stumble out of the bedroom dressed in their pyjamas. All three of them decide to have a “Karen’s not dead” celebratory breakfast at a diner on 44th. While they’re eating, they get the call from Brett that one Oliver Rance has been charged with Daniel Fisher’s murder. Karen Page is no longer a suspect.

“That’s good news,” says Foggy, when Karen is silent.

“I know, and I’m glad, but -“ Karen stops, her voice breaking. “He’s still dead.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Karen. And the best we can do is make sure that this Rance guy goes away for a _very_ long time,” says Foggy.

“Wait, did you report the attack last night?” says Mattie. “The more they can pin on Rance, the better.” She’s not feeling particularly charitable, given how sore she is this morning.

“Oh, uh, no, I didn’t - I didn’t want to talk to the police. Last night.”

“Are you willing to do that now?”

Karen nods.

“She just nodded,” says Foggy.

“Oh, sorry. Yes. I am.”

So they finish breakfast and head over to the station, and Karen gives her statement to the desk sergeant, since Brett just got off his shift. She uses words like “flip” and “jump” a lot when she describes the fight between Mattie and Rance.

“Is all that true?” whispers Foggy to Mattie.

“She doesn’t really know the correct fighting terms,” Mattie whispers back. “It was a lot less… acrobatic than she’s making it sound.”

“Uh-huh.”

As they’re leaving the station, Karen gets a call from Ben Urich at the _Bulletin_ , who seems to be the one who wound up with the USB. Karen delicately declines to comment.

“Everything I knew was on that file,” she tells Mattie and Foggy as she hangs up. “And I don’t really want my name out there with all of this.”

“Fair enough,” says Foggy.

Karen’s exhausted, so they take her back to her apartment, and she collapses onto the bed after they tell her they’ll call her tomorrow. Then they’re back to the office, more paperwork to file, more unpacking to do. Mattie researches civil suits against the NYPD, because they are _definitely_ going to recommend that Karen sue for every penny they can squeeze out of them. The precedents are good, and with the public image of the NYPD so tarnished these days, she’s sure they can get a nice settlement for Karen.

Tragically, they wouldn’t be able to include Detectives Blake and Hoffman in the suit. _Save them for later._ She can always have a talk with them about who was pulling their strings. While she’s in the mask.

She takes the night off, to Foggy’s relief. He boots up Netflix, and starts describing _Parks and Recreation_ to her, but she falls asleep in the middle of the second episode with her head in his lap.

The _Bulletin_ ’s Union Allied story comes out the next morning. Karen is officially safe. When they call her, she says she’ll come by the office, and bring lasagna.

It smells delicious when she heats it up, and she opens a bottle of wine to go with it. They drink out of their water glasses.

“Here you go,” she says, bringing the lasagna to the table. “So, I know it’s not much in the way of repayment, but it is, um, my grandmother’s recipe, and she made me promise only to serve it to my future husband.” Mattie laughs. “You know, it’s like filled with virtue, or something.”

“Should I be worried?” says Mattie.

“Actually, _I’m_ the one who should be worried,” says Foggy. “ _You’re_ the one who tends to lose your mind around beautiful women.”

“That’s not true,” Mattie says to Karen.

“Junior year.”

“You want to go there, Nelson?”

“What happened in junior year?” says Karen.

“ _Mattie_ dated this absolute _psycho_ named Elektra -“

“And _Foggy_ dated a _gun-nut_ named Rachel,” finishes Mattie sweetly.

“A gun-nut?” says Karen.

“I think she wound up joining the Marines,” says Foggy.

“She took him to a gun range on a date,” says Mattie.

“I was exercising my Second Amendment rights. Which is legal. Which is more than _you_ can say about what you got up to with Elektra.”

“You’re joking,” says Karen.

“There might have been property damage,” says Mattie.

“And car theft," supplies Foggy helpfully.

“ _How_ long have you two known each other?” says Karen, laughing.

“Seven years of school, and…” starts Mattie.

“One year of internship,” finishes Foggy. “Eight years. Almost to the day, give or take a few weeks.” He takes a bite of lasagna. “Oh, my God, I can taste the virtue.”

Mattie takes a bite. “Thanks, Karen, this is delicious.”

“Well, it’s the least I can do,” Karen says, picking at her plate. “If it weren’t for you two, I’d still be in that cell.”

“Job’s easy when your client’s innocent,” says Mattie. “All you did was tell the truth.”

“Yeah, but you listened.”

Mattie smiles in her direction, and takes another bite.

“Oh, and don’t get us wrong, we’re still going to bill you,” says Foggy. “Just as soon as we figure out how to make bills.” Mattie laughs.

“I did notice that you could use some help around here,” says Karen. “And I - I owe you. Maybe I could clean the place up a bit.”

“Is this place messy?” says Mattie.

“Our firm is very prestigious and discerning, Miss Page,” says Foggy. “Do you have any prior experience hiding electrical cords up in ceiling tiles?”

“Uh, no, but I’ll work for free,” says Karen.

“Yeah, you’re hired,” says Mattie.

“You just got hired!” says Foggy.

They clink their glasses together, and eat lasagna and drink wine, and Mattie thinks, _This_. 

She’ll go to the gym tonight, make sure none of her injuries from Rance impede her movement. She’ll go out tomorrow night. But for now, there’s laughter, lasagna, and wine, and she’s with her fiance and someone who might be a friend.

_This is why I do it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Elektra: I wrote The One Constant before Daredevil Season 2 came out, and thought that the details of her relationship with Mattie that I borrowed from the comics would probably be safe enough to use. Turns out...not so much. So, moving forward, I'm going to be using an amalgam of what was established in The One Constant and the flashbacks from the series as the backstory - the big changes from the series are placing their relationship in undergrad instead of law school, and the Roscoe Sweeney scene never happened. Elektra has her reasons for that.


	2. How to Win Friends and Influence People

“I need to head out to take care of a…thing…” Mattie says, leaning against the door of Foggy’s office. The sun just went down, according to her phone, and she can’t waste another minute, not with that boy still in the Russians’ hands.

“What - oh, the _thing_ ,” says Foggy, because they are geniuses when it comes to coded communication. Uncrackable. “Uh, do you mind if I stay here? Just, there’s a lot of -“

“Yeah, that’s fine, I’ll probably be a while anyway.” She trails her fingertips along the wall as she goes to him; Karen’s still at her desk, and Mattie can’t risk letting the pretense down for a moment. Foggy reaches out and takes her hand, and she leans over to kiss him. “Have fun with your files.”

“And you have fun with your…thing.”

“See you at home.”

They have very different definitions of fun.

_Two days._ The Russians have had the boy for two days. She only found out last night, tracked their movements, but couldn’t get close enough. They’ve moved him again tonight, but she easily finds one of their lackeys, and he tells her they’ve moved their operation to a warehouse close to the river.

The lackey says he doesn’t know if the boy is with them, and he’s not lying. It’s all she has to go on.

The warehouse smells of decay and water damage, and she can hear six men, five inside and one on the door. No child crying, but they might be keeping him quiet. _Or he might be unconscious._ She’s not close enough to tell if there’s a child’s heartbeat inside.

She sends up a silent prayer that the boy is unharmed, but she knows better than to hope.

There won’t be much cover inside; it sounds like the warehouse was pretty thoroughly stripped when it was abandoned, the men’s voices echoing in a cavernous space. There’s a scrape of chairs, and she can smell Prima cigarettes and cheap cologne, and why does it smell so familiar?

The men laugh, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She bares her teeth. She’s not letting them take the boy out of the city.

She takes out the guard on the side door, and slips through silently.

Which is when the shooting starts.

It turns out, in a big empty space, she has nowhere to hide, no way to separate them and take them out one by one. She can’t even kill the lights, there are too many, too high.

It’s five against one, and by some miracle, she avoids being shot before she’s in the middle of them, focusing on taking out their guns before someone puts a bullet in her. She breaks arms and wrists, sending weapons skittering across the floor, and there’s a pain in her side that she ignores, and _no one else is here_.

The boy isn’t here. It was a trap.

Prima Cigarettes seems to be in charge, standing back and shouting in Russian, trying to get a clear shot at her. She flings someone at him, and they collapse on top of each other as one of the others sweeps her legs out from under her, and kicks her in the side. She hears bones break, and the sound is almost worse than feeling it, but she keeps moving, kicking up, rolling to her feet, and shielding herself from gunshots with someone else’s body.

Her shield punches her in the head, his ring breaking the skin under her mask, and she drops him as she flings herself out the door.

They’re coming after her, but the bottleneck at the door buys her enough time to stagger into an alley and into the shadows. Her head is ringing, and her radar is erratic, and the world on fire flickers in and out. She can hear them behind her, and she can’t keep moving, she’s slower than they are, they’ll catch her, and _she has to make it home_. 

In the next alley, there are fire escapes which she could climb, but she can’t trust her body to do what it’s told right now, and she can’t be sure she’d be out of sight by the time the Russians got there. But there’s a dumpster on her right, and she can hide in there until they’re gone, and then try the fire escapes.

Her abdomen feels like it’s being ripped apart as she hauls herself up and in and collapses on top of the garbage bags. It’s not so bad, the bags on top are still intact, and she hears the Russians run past. They turn the corner, and they’re gone.

_Time to go._

She reaches up to the lip of the dumpster, and promptly passes out.

***

As Foggy tries to overcome his embarrassment over Karen hearing him singing _Pirates of Penzance_ , it occurs to him that they don’t have many friends in New York. Not real friends, who you can ask out for drinks, or call for help when you move, or whose shoulder you can cry on. They’ve had to think a lot about this, with the wedding planning. Mattie has Pam, and that’s about it. All of Foggy’s closest friends from college and law school don’t live in New York anymore; Jason, his college roommate, is going to be his best man, and he’s in California now. _Brett Mahoney_ , of all people, might be the closest thing he has to a friend, now that Mattie moved out of “friend” into “girlfriend” and then “fiancee.”

And he likes Karen; in another life, one without a pretty blind girl with a smile that can light up a room, he might even have asked her out. He likes bantering with her, he likes that she gives him a hard time over his singing, so when she says “I just don’t feel like going home…OK?” he decides that he, Franklin Percy Nelson, is going to make a friend.

Mattie said she’d be out for a while anyway, so she won’t mind. It might even take his mind off of wondering what she’s up to right now.

“Well, we can’t stay here,” he says. “Not enough money in the kitty to keep the lights on past midnight. So let’s hop a few bars, not think about it.”

“Yes,” Karen says. “Big fan of the not thinking.”

“You will fit right in here,” Foggy says with complete honesty.

“Should we call Mattie?”

_Uh, no, because my blind fiancee is probably busy punching people in the face right now._

“Uh, no, she had a…thing…she’s probably busy. You know what, I’ll call her and see if she picks up.” On their way down the stairs, he calls Mattie’s phone, and, predictably, gets her voicemail. He can imagine it, chirping his name on their bedside table, where she always puts it before she goes out. “Hey, Mattie, Karen and I decided to have a few drinks, so you should come down if you’re done your thing early. Give me a call, I’ll let you know where we are. OK, love you, bye.” He hangs up. “She’s probably in the middle of whatever it is, probably has her phone off.”

“Oh, right.”

There are three types of bars in Hell’s Kitchen these days: the trendy new ones recently opened (and most destined to close in under a year), the friendly neighborhood pubs and sports bars, and the dives that survived gentrification and the Incident like cockroaches. Foggy decides to ease Karen into the art of bar-hopping in Hell’s Kitchen, so he starts them off at Luke’s, which falls into the second category; it’s not flashy, but it’s clean and respectable, and the owner behind the bar is a decent guy who takes care of his clientele. Foggy buys beers at the bar and brings them over to the table Karen grabbed.

He notices that Karen puts her back against the wall, and eyes the other customers warily. Every time the door opens, her attention focuses on the person who walked in. Foggy decides not to ask about it unless she brings it up. She’s had a hard few days.

“So, can I ask - about you and Mattie?” Karen says. “I mean - if you don’t want to talk about personal stuff, that’s fine, you don’t have to -“

“No, no, it’s fine! We’re - we’re still figuring out the personal/professional boundaries thing, but no, it’s OK to ask. What’d you want to know?”

“Oh, well…” She shrugs. “Um, when’s the wedding?”

“Uh, February. It’s cheaper in the winter, and my best man’s doing a Ph.D. at CalTech, so we put it during reading week so he can come out for it.”

“You two been engaged long?”

“Just a few weeks. Like, last month, actually. Hence the still figuring out…all of that.”

“Oh, is that what Mattie’s doing?”

“Yes! Wedding stuff. I’m not even sure what she’s up to, but she said it’s important.”

_Note to self: tell Mattie that “wedding stuff” is an awesome cover story. Let’s hope nobody asks about the bruises._

“So…trying to get this straight - you met in college?”

“Yeah, literally first day of freshman year. She had the room next to me in residence.”

“But you haven’t been together since then?”

“No, _that’s_ only been since - end of law school? So about a year and a half now.” He grins into his beer. “Feels like forever. In a good way. I mean, feels like it _should_ have been forever.”

“Should have been?”

“I mean, I always had a thing for her. Like, about five seconds after I met her I made a pass at her. And then I spent the next six and a half years terrified that if I tried again, she’d think I was a creep.”

Karen laughs. “You realize that doesn’t make any sense?”

“Tell that to eighteen-year-old me. _And_ twenty-five-year-old me. And…yeah, it didn’t make any sense, but…have you ever wanted something so badly that you were afraid to have it?”

Karen just looks thoughtful as she sips her beer.

“So what changed?” she says.

“We got drunk and made out,” says Foggy. “And then we had a huge fight, and didn’t talk for a week, and then we decided to actually behave like adults and talk to each other, and here we are.”

“Just like that?”

“I may be glossing over some of the details, but yes, that is the Saga of Foggy and Mattie in a nutshell.” _Give or take some super-senses and vigilantism._

“A romance for the ages,” says Karen.

“Yup. Just wait until I show you where I proposed to her.”

***

The first thing that runs through Mattie’s head as she wakes up is a memory of Amy Poehler’s perky voice saying “Everything hurts, and I’m dying.” She can’t even start to assess where she’s injured, her entire body is just a mass of pain.

There’s someone here with her ( _Where is here?_ ), and she hears a cell phone dialling. She reaches out and grabs at the phone, but only manages to snag the person’s wrist.

“No, no calls,” she manages to say.

“It’s OK. I’m just trying to help,” says the other person. Woman. It’s a woman.

“No.”

“We have to get you to the hospital.”

“They’ll kill everyone.”

“Who?”

“The men who did this. They’ll kill everyone in the hospital to get to me.” She wouldn’t put it past them - they kidnapped a child and beat his father, and left their own men out as bait to lure her in. And she knows they’ve been asking questions about her; she’s found some of the victims. She rolls onto her side, and discovers that she’s on the floor.

“OK, you can’t -“ starts the woman. “Don’t. You’ve lost a lot of blood. I think you might have been stabbed.” Mattie drags herself to her feet, and she’s lightheaded, probably from the blood loss.

“I have to leave.” _Move_ before the Russians track her here, and find this woman. She stumbles toward the nearest doorframe.

“You wanna leave? Door’s that way,” says the woman, pointing in a completely different direction. Mattie stops. _Dammit._ She swings around, where the woman is pointing, and the world spins, her legs give out, and she’s unconscious before she hits the floor.

***

When she wakes up, she’s lying on something softer, and the woman is moving gloved hands over her body as she insults Mattie’s outfit. Mattie’s face is bare. _Shit._

“You’ve got two or three broken ribs,” the woman is saying, “probable concussion, some kind of puncture wound, and that’s just the stuff I know about…” Mattie resists telling her that she has only _two_ broken ribs, thank you very much. “I haven’t checked,” says the woman in a slightly gentler tone, “but I have to ask if you’ve been sexually assaulted.”

“No,” Mattie says. _Bet they were planning on it._ “Nothing like that.”

“And your eyes, they’re non-responsive to light, which isn’t freaking you the hell out, so either you’re blind, or in way worse shape than I thought.”

“Do I have to pick one?”

The woman’s name is Claire. She’s not a doctor, but “something like that.” Mattie guesses either a nurse or a med student, but from what Mattie can tell, she’s older than most med students. So, a nurse, probably. She pulled Mattie out of the dumpster, and didn’t immediately call the police, which bodes well for their future relationship.

She decides to call Mattie “Shelly” when Mattie won’t tell her her name.

“Shelly?”

“Girl I knew. Used to be a friend. Turns out she was _very_ good at keeping secrets, too,” says Claire bitterly.

She tells Mattie to rest, and, against all reason, Mattie does.

***

The second bar of the night is Dave’s on 9th, which is still a _tiny_ step above a true dive bar, but is cheap, cheerful, and has the hits of the 80s on the jukebox. Karen switches to harder stuff, while Foggy nurses a beer.

He tries to ask, “So what about you, Karen Page?” but she deflects again.

“So you grew up around here?” she says.

“Yeah, I went to school not too far from here, actually. My dad owns a hardware store - well, three of them, actually - but the first one was in Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Whereabouts?”

“It was on 39th, but it’s not there anymore. The Incident.” These days, those two words explain everything.

“The…oh. Were you here for that?”

“We were up at Columbia - Mattie and me. Wound up having to listen to the entire thing on Mattie’s laptop.”

“Must have been terrifying.”

“I can honestly say it was the scariest day of my life.” _A few since then have come close, though._ “My parents were still living here, and we couldn’t get a hold of them for hours.”

“I remember watching the news,” Karen says. “It just - seemed like something out of a movie, you know? Aliens invading New York, it’s like something Michael Bay would make.”

“I heard he was trying to get the rights off of Tony Stark.”

Karen snorts. “Let’s hope _that_ never happens.”

“Yeah, he’d probably cast Shia LaBoeuf as Captain America.”

“Oh, God, he would! No, no, no, we can come up with someone better. Who would be a good Captain America?”

They play the Avengers casting game for a while (“Emily Blunt as Black Widow!”), and then Foggy decides it’s time to show Karen the jewel in Hell’s Kitchen’s crown.

It’s time for Josie’s.

***

She can’t breathe. Her lungs are burning, and she can’t breathe. Claire is talking to her, trying to explain what’s happening, and _she can’t breathe_.

And then there’s a sharp pain just above her breast, and the most _awful_ sound of liquid and air bubbling together, and then there’s air in her lungs, and she’s never taking breathing for granted ever again.

Claire sits back, the needle in her hand.

“Look, let’s just say for the sake of discussion I buy this whole ‘we can’t go to the hospital because whatever’ story you’ve got going on. But we need to talk about what happens if you give up the ghost here in my living room. Because I’m listening to myself explain to the police how I let this happen, and every version ends with me in handcuffs, so convince me it’s worth it.”

She’s on the verge of panicking, her body tells Mattie. This isn’t what she signed up for. When you pull a bleeding woman out of a dumpster, you don’t expect a stubborn vigilante with a collapsed lung.

Mattie tells her about the boy they kidnapped. And how she’d been tricked.

“So, they took this kid just to get to you?” Claire says.

“Yeah, I’ve been making their lives…difficult lately,” Mattie says.

“But you’re blind.”

And Mattie just has to laugh, even though it hurts. “There are other ways to see.”

“This is what you do? You make life difficult for bad men?”

_Yes._

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“No offense, but you don’t seem to be very good at it.”

Mattie chuckles, then winces at the movement. “Yeah, well, you’re catching me on an off night.”

“Did you at least find the kid?”

“No, he wasn’t there,” Mattie says. _He’s still out there._ “I barely made it out myself. I was careless. Stupid -“

Claire’s saying something, but Mattie can smell Prima cigarettes and cheap cologne wafting through the building. _Why is it so familiar?!_ She can hear him asking questions in an American accent (almost perfect, but not quite), calling himself “Detective Foster.” There’s no-one else with him.

“Shelly?”

“Someone’s coming.”

“Wait, what?”

“There’s someone in the building, a man, going from door to door.”

“How do you know that?”

“Shh.” She listens to him asking questions, follows the layers of sound. “He’s on the third floor already.” She struggles to sit up. “Smells like Prima cigarettes and discount cologne.” She gets a hand on the back of the couch and starts to pull herself up.

“You can smell a man on the third floor?”

“You’ll smell him soon enough,” says Mattie grimly. “He really likes that cologne.” She’s upright now, her feet on the floor. Claire hasn’t moved, but her adrenaline is spiking. “You’re looking at me like I’m crazy, right?”

“Seems the appropriate response,” Claire says incredulously.

“There are some things I haven’t told you about me, Claire.”

Sitting up was a bad idea. _Just one more in a very long line._

“You haven’t told me anything about you,” Claire says. “All I know is that you’ve got injuries that would have men twice your size laid out flat.”

“Yeah, well, taking a beating’s kind of a family tradition.” She points toward the nearest doorframe. “Kitchen?”

“Yeah.”

“Detective Foster” is already only one floor down, and moving fast. Mattie drags herself to her feet and stumbles into the kitchen.

“What are you -“ Claire starts.

“Do you have my mask?”

“Yeah, it’s…” Claire starts fumbling around on the floor.

Mattie tries to identify everything that’s out on the counter, but Claire apparently doesn’t use a knife block. She yanks open the first drawer, which is full of tape and batteries and other domestic detritus. 

“What are you looking for?” says Claire suspiciously, the mask in her hand.

“He’s not going to go down easy,” says Mattie, holding out her hand behind her. Claire puts the mask in it.

The second drawer has the cutlery, and Mattie finds a small knife.

“This all you got?”

“Yeah, it’s for vegetables, not a knife fight.”

Mattie doesn’t tell her she has no intention of _fighting_. She’ll lose, even with the knife (and her knife-fighting skills are rudimentary at the best of times). She’ll have to move fast, disable “Detective Foster” in one stroke, or both she and Claire are dead. 

She pulls the mask over her hair.

“He’s at your neighbor’s door,” she says, staggering towards Claire’s front door.

“You kidding me? Hey!” Claire runs around her, putting her hands on Mattie’s shoulders, muttering “hey, hey, hey” like she’s trying to calm a horse. “You can barely stand up.”

“That’s what the knife’s for.” Mattie tries to duck around Claire.

“Wait! Don’t do this. Not in my home, OK? Nobody has to get hurt, just stand over there on the side and be quiet, and I’ll get rid of him.” And he’s here, knocking on the door, and the smell of him is enough to make Mattie gag. “Please,” Claire whispers. There’s another knock. “Who is it?” Claire calls.

“NYPD, ma’am. Please open the door.”

And it might be the desperation in Claire’s voice, or it might be the fact that she can barely keep her grip on the knife, but she lets Claire push her over around the corner from the front door and open the door. She pulls the mask down over her face and listens to “Detective Foster” give Claire the same story he’s been giving everyone in the building about a bodega being shot up, and Claire’s heartbeat spikes as she calmly lies to his face.

Under the cigarettes and the cologne, Mattie smells his adrenaline surging, and as soon as Claire closes the door, he’s pulling out his phone and rushing down the stairs. Claire is complaining about the cologne as Mattie pushes past her.

“He didn’t believe you.”

She staggers into the hall, listening to him speaking a stream of Russian into his phone. She snags the fire extinguisher off the wall, but she can’t hit him while he’s still on the stairs, and she’s in no shape to parkour down to confront him. But he’ll have to cross under the open shaft of the stairwell to get to the main door, and he’s moving at a consistent speed, so she slows her breath, lets her senses focus on two things: the fire extinguisher in her hand, and the man on the stairs.

For a moment, everything drops away, and it’s just her heartbeat and his, and the weapon in her hand. She lets go of the extinguisher.

She hears Claire gasp beside her, and slumps back against the wall when she hears it hit “Detective Foster” in the head. Claire is leaning over the railing to get a better look, and there’s a heartbeat hammering in fright a floor above them. She grabs Claire and pulls her back.

“There’s someone else one floor up watching us,” she says. It wouldn’t matter if it was just her, she has the mask on, but she has to protect Claire, like Claire protected her. It occurs to her, not for the first time tonight, that she has lost control of the situation, and has no idea how to get it back. And the person upstairs is young, and she can’t hurt an innocent bystander, but she won’t let Claire get hurt either. “Oh, no, he’s young, he’s scared,” she finishes.

And Claire _leans out to look_. Sometimes, Mattie thinks she’s the only one in New York who has any survival instincts at all.

“Santino?” Claire says. The boy runs. “He’s the one who found you in the alley.”

“He’s seen my face, too?”

“Yeah.”

_Damn._ She feels a pang of anger that there are now _two_ people running around who know what she looks like, one of whom seems less amenable to the whole “secret identity” concept than Claire is. But then she tilts an ear down to where the Russian is lying, and reconsiders. _At least it’s an extra pair of hands?_ And there’s a start of a plan in her head, one that might pull this situation out of the gutter it’s currently in.

“Claire, go upstairs and get him. We’re gonna need help carrying ‘Detective Foster’ to the roof.” _Because I sure as hell can’t._ She starts down the stairs.

“What the hell are we going to the roof for?”

“Less chance of someone in the building hearing him scream.”

Claire runs upstairs, and Mattie hears her knocking on Santino’s door. There’s a conversation in Spanish (Mattie gathers that Santino doesn’t speak much English) as Claire convinces him that the cop wasn’t a real cop, and that the girl in the mask needs his help.

“He’s one of the ones who did that to her,” Claire says in Spanish. “She’s trying to help someone that’s being hurt by them. A little boy.”

“Who are they?” says Santino in the same language.

“She says they’re gangsters, Russians. Santino, she just needs your help moving him.”

“Do you trust her?”

Claire sighs. “Yes,” she says.

***

Foggy’s buzzed from the drinks at Luke’s and Dave’s, so when Karen says “Oh, do you think Mattie’s done her thing by now?” it sounds like a great idea to drag his vigilante-fiancee out to Josie’s at two in the morning.

He gets Mattie’s voicemail, and leaves a message telling her where they are.

He manages to remember to lie to Karen, and says, “She might be asleep by now,” when he hangs up.

Karen looks around, and even though she’s been drinking harder stuff than Foggy has, she’s holding it a lot better.

“You saved the best for last, huh?” she says, unimpressed.

“Oh, yeah. This place is a shithole -“ Foggy glances over to make sure Josie didn’t hear that, “- but it’s our shithole.” He reaches over and snags a pair of glasses. “The city’s tried to shut it down half a dozen times, but I helped Josie with the liens, and as a result, we get to drink for free!”

“You absolutely do _not_ get to drink for free,” cuts in Josie, who slides a bottle over to Foggy. It’s the closest she gets to affection, and Foggy’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he doesn’t ask what’s in the bottle.

“Let’s agree to disagree!” he says, and pours out two glasses of…whatever. Karen coughs when she drinks it, and Josie glares at him disapprovingly.

“Mattie know you’re out together?” she says icily.

“Yes, actually, I just called her, and this is _our_ employee…for your information.” Josie harrumphs. “Josie, this is Karen, our secretary -“

“Office manager -“ corrects Karen.

“Who is extremely diligent, really, _refuses_ to leave the office, so I’m rewarding her work ethic. With…” He looks at the bottle, which has some sort of Cyrillic writing on the label. “Dubious alcohol.”

Karen takes the bottle, trying to read the label, then holds it up to the light.

“Is there something in there?” she says.

Foggy takes the bottle and holds it up. _The rumors are true._

“I…think that’s an eel,” he says.

Karen laughs. “Really?”

“Let’s get to the bottom and find out.”

Karen knocks back the liquor and pours herself another, looking lost and sad.

“So, you wanna talk about it?” Foggy asks.

And the dam breaks, everything Karen’s been holding onto for the past few days, ever since Daniel Fisher’s death.

“If that girl in the mask hadn’t have been there…” she finishes.

Foggy has the terrifying thought that if he’d been an idiot for even five more minutes, if he’d kept Mattie in the apartment any longer than he had, Karen might have been dead by the time she got there. _Lesson learned._

And he wonders where Mattie is, that she isn’t home yet. She might just be asleep (he knows she’s not asleep). He pours himself another drink.

“My cousin does drywall,” he says. “I’ll call him first thing in the morning.”

“It’s not the apartment, Foggy.”

“I know.”

“I don’t see the city anymore. All that I see are its…dark corners. I look around this room and all that I see are threats.”

Part of Foggy can’t argue with that. He has a fiancee who goes out and single-handedly tries to take on the entire criminal element of Hell’s Kitchen; he knows how dangerous this city can be, how dark and twisted its people can become.

Then he looks around, and he remembers that people are sometimes just _people_.

“This room?” he says. “These guys are harmless.” He points out Josie’s regulars, tells Karen about them. Karen is unconvinced. “You don’t want to go home, you don’t want to go home. We can stay here!” He catches Josie’s threatening eye. “Until last call.”

“Won’t Mattie mind?”

“Nah, she’s cool about that sort of thing. But we should _definitely_ get her to come out next time.” Foggy thinks of a night, not _that_ long ago, really, with Mattie laughing about “ _El grande avocados_ ”, and thinks he hasn’t seen her laugh like that in a while. And he looks over at Karen, and thinks, _yeah, there should definitely be a next time_.

***

Once Claire and Santino have carried “Detective Foster” to the roof, she sends Santino back to his apartment (“Don’t tell anyone we’re here,” she says in Spanish) and Claire for rope. While she’s waiting, she goes through the Russian’s pockets, and comes up with a phone, a gun, a badge (presumably fake, but it could say “Joker’s Novelty Shop” for all she knows), and a pack of cigarettes. She unloads the gun and tosses it and the clip into the dumpster below. The phone is touch-screen, and the screen sounds smashed, but Claire might be able to get something off it. 

Claire returns, and Mattie tosses her the phone while she ties the guy by his wrists to the water tower above her.

“You find anything?” she says. It might be the adrenaline, or the fresh air, or the fact that she has a _goal_ now, but she’s feeling stronger, standing straighter.

“You smashed the hell out of it with that extinguisher,” says Claire. _Damn._ Even the number for whoever he called on the stairs would help. “He had a badge. What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“This is way past what I signed up for,” she says. It’s true. It doesn’t mean that she can walk away.

“What exactly do you think that was?” Mattie leans against the ledge of the roof.

“I found someone who needed help, so I helped her.”

“Oh, yeah? That simple?”

Claire comes over to her. “Do you really want to get into this in front of him?” she says, quieter.

“He’s out.”

“Maybe he’s faking.”

“He’s not.”

The anger that’s been building in Claire breaks. “OK, that right there, that’s what I’m talking about! OK, I find a girl in a dumpster who turns out to be some kind of blind vigilante who can do all of this really weird shit like smell cologne through walls and sense whether someone’s unconscious or faking it. Slap on top of that, she can take an unbelievable amount of punishment without one damn complaint.”

“The last part’s the Catholicism,” says Mattie dryly.

“So, what? I’m supposed to take it on faith I’m on the right side of this?”

“Did you really carry me into your apartment just on faith?”

“I _carried_ you in because we both know the awful shit that can happen to women in this city.”

 “You saw the mask. You knew that wasn’t what had happened to me, and you knew which side you were on the moment you took it off me. Why’d you help me, Claire?”

So Claire tells her, tells her about working in the ER at Metro-General, watching Mattie’s targets being brought in (“I counted nine broken bones between them.”), and the people Mattie’s saved.

“And I want to believe in what you’re doing, I really do. But this?”

“I know you’re afraid,” Mattie says. “You can’t give in to the fear. If you do, men like this win.”

And she remembers something Elektra once said, a lifetime ago.

“Men like to start fights, but it’s always up to the women to finish them.”

*** 

“You seriously proposed to her _here_?”

They’re down at the bottom of the bottle, and Foggy is contemplating whether one is supposed to consume the eel or not.

“Yeah. Not _here_ , just…down the bar. Over by where Josie is.” It’s _very_ important that this is clear.

Karen giggles. “Aw, did you get down on one knee?”

“God, no, have you _seen_ the floor?”

“No, but I think my shoe is sticking to it.” They both burst into drunk laughter. “But, why _here_?”

“What’s wrong with here? It’s romantic!”

“If you say so.” Karen knocks back the last of her drink.

“Nah, it just sort of happened. You know, one minute you’re talking about bank loans, the next you’re saying ‘we should get married!’” He holds up the bottle, and Karen leans in, looking at it. “Do you think we’re supposed to drink it?”

“I don’t know,” she giggles. “Is it like the worm in tequila?”

Foggy upends the bottle over his glass, and shakes it until the end of the eel peeks through the mouth. He grabs it with his fingers and pulls it out. It breaks into two pieces as he tugs at it, and he drops the smaller one into Karen’s glass.

“On three?” he says.

Karen visibly steels herself. “If I get poisoned, we tell everyone this was your idea.”

“Fair enough.” They count to three, and he drops his part of the eel into his mouth as Karen shakes her eel-segment into hers. It’s…chewy, actually. A little like…really tough Jell-o. It tastes mostly of the liquor they’ve been drinking, so that part’s fine. He swallows. Karen’s making a face.

“I can’t believe we did that,” she says.

“Hey, now we can say we drank the eel!” he says, offering her his hand in a high-five. She slaps it. “And we are now filled with mighty eel strength! We, the valiant, the kindhearted, we can now defend ourselves against the evils of Hell’s Kitchen!” He slaps her shoulder.

Josie yells out last call.

“We should go home,” Karen says.

“Yes.”

“I needed this,” she says. “I really needed this.”

_Me too._ “C’mon, I’ll walk you home.”

***

There’s a trick to letting the devil out.

It’s about knowing how much to let it take over. About judging the situation, assessing how much this calls for, whether she needs her rage to run hot or cold.

Hot is easy. Cold means that she lets the devil out slow, always in control. It’s the difference between a scream and a long, slow exhale, between an explosion and a pressure valve.

She opens the valve just a little as “Detective Foster” wakes up, and feels the devil stretch and flex its claws as she interrogates him. She feels Claire’s heartrate increase as he casually talks about selling children, and Claire jumps forward, telling her to stab him in the…eye.

_I’m not the only one with a devil inside._ Maybe there’s something about masks that brings them closer to the surface.

Mattie does as Claire tells her, and “Detective Foster” screams. She covers his mouth with her hand, telling him that even if he dies, she’ll go through the rest of them until one of them breaks. Then she cuts him down and drags him on his back to the ledge, hauls him up, and holds him over the edge.

“This is important,” she says quietly. He’s moaning in pain. “Shh. Listen, I need you to know why I’m hurting you. It’s not just the boy. I’m doing this ‘cause I enjoy it.” She grabs his leg, tipping him over the ledge, most of his weight held over the drop, and the devil smiles as he pleads with her. “Where is he?” She lets his weight drop a few inches. “Where is he?” _Let go_ , the devil whispers.

“Underneath Troika restaurant! Eleventh and 44th!” She lets him hang there for a moment longer before pulling him back. When he’s sitting on the ledge, he starts laughing. “They’ll be waiting for you. They want you alive, show you what happens to little girls who get in our way.” _Oh, good, rape threats. How original._ “Maybe they’ll make the boy watch -“

And Mattie has what she needs, so she lets the devil run hot for a moment, and shoves him over the ledge. 

Claire screams, and Mattie hears a delicious smack as he lands in the dumpster. A small, petty part of her hopes that some of the bags broke under him, that he got crap all over him.

Claire is starting to panic, so Mattie tells her that he’s alive, and then orders her to go to her friend’s apartment. She wraps the remains of the rope around her wrists, makeshift wraps, because she’ll need all the help she can get.

And she intends to hit _hard_ tonight.

“I don’t believe you,” Claire says as Mattie walks toward the edge of the roof. “What you said. I don’t believe you enjoy this.”

Mattie wants to argue that _Claire_ certainly derived some satisfaction from watching her stab the guy in the eye, wants to argue that Claire is wrong, but keeps her mouth shut and jumps across to the next building.

Eleventh and 44th is only a few blocks away, and the rooftops are quiet as Mattie runs along them. She drops down the fire escape of the building next to the restaurant, and listens.

Eight men in the basement. And one frightened child.

No-one in the restaurant. She breaks a window and slides in. She finds the stairs down to the basement through the kitchen, and follows the sounds. One hallway, three rooms, the boy at the end. She could try to slip past them unnoticed, take the boy and flee, but that would risk the boy if they’re spotted on the way out.

No, she has to take them _all_ out first.

They’re evenly split, four in one room, four in the other. Four, she can manage. The odds won’t get any better.

She charges into the first room and lets the devil out, hot and wild and furious. She lets it scream, and tear, and claw, using anything it can lay its hands on to hurt, to break, to wound.

Apparently, the devil thinks a microwave is an appropriate projectile weapon. It does the job.

The men from the other room are coming at her now, trying to pile onto her, and she lashes out with everything she has left, hearing bones break and blood flow. She can barely stand, but they keep getting back up, so she keeps putting them down. Collapsing is not an option, however much she’d like to.

And then she hits one of them square in the head, and trips over one of the others’ bodies, and lands on her side, but no-one tries to come after her. She listens for a moment, and no-one is moving. Except for her.

It’s over.

She hauls herself to her feet, gripping the doorframe to keep herself upright. The boy is inside the last room, so she unbolts the door, then stops. _You’ll terrify him._ She slips the mask up to her forehead, and takes a breath, trying to relax her features into something that’s not a snarl.

She opens the door, and he cowers away from her, into the corner.

“Hi,” she says quietly, crouching down to him. “I know you’re scared, but I’m here to help you, OK? You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

The boy uncurls, and nods.

“OK,” he says. “OK.”

She holds out her hand. “Let’s get you home to your dad.”

He takes her hand, and she wraps his arm around her neck, pulling him against her. She stands up, and he wraps his legs around her hips, and she ignores every ache in her body because he _needs_ her to be strong right now. She needs to be invincible in his eyes. He needs to believe in heroes. 

She slides the mask down with her free hand, and walks out, down the hall, the boy clinging to her neck.

She carries him up the stairs and out the fire door. Once they’re out on the street, she cocks her head, trying to identify what’s in the buildings around her.

“Across the street, the bodega, do you see it?” she says. The boy nods against her. “I need you to go there and tell them to call the police. Can you do that for me?” He tightens his arms around her neck. “I’ll be right here until the police come, OK?” She tightens her grip on him. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He nods, and says, “OK,” so she puts him down, and he runs across the street. She lurks in the shadows, listening to him tell the cashier to call the police. The cashier, a girl with a Puerto Rican accent, sounds horrified at what little the boy tells her, and is on the phone immediately. When she hangs up, she gives the boy a candy bar, and holds him tight.

“Oh, honey, you must be so scared,” she says.

“The lady in the mask said I didn’t have to be,” he says.

The police are there in ten minutes, and it’s not Detectives Blake or Hoffman (because Mattie’s sure as hell not letting _them_ take care of the boy). The detective identifies himself as Clemons (“I’m Oscar, what’s your name?”), and he seems sincere enough, so she decides it’s safe to leave.

She shimmies up the fire escape, and runs across the rooftops, up to 54th where Claire is staying. There’s a fire escape on the outside of the building, so she slides down to the fourth floor, listening for Claire’s heartbeat. She finds it, and knocks on the window. Claire was dozing on the couch, but she jolts awake, and opens the window.

“Shelly?”

“Yeah.”

“You made it.” She steps aside, letting Mattie in. “Did you find him?”

“Yeah. He’s with the cops now.”

“Good.” Claire hesitates. “You need patching up?”

“Took a hit to my side,” Mattie admits. “It’s started bleeding again.”

“Let me have a look.”

She maneuvers Mattie into a chair, and grabs the small bag by the door, which apparently has her first aid kit inside. Mattie pulls up her shirt, and Claire gloves up and starts replacing the stitches.

“It’s not so bad,” Claire says. “You’ll just have to be careful not to pull at it again.”

“Or get hit again.”

“That too.” She’s done, and she strips off the gloves. Mattie tugs her shirt back down. “How many were there?”

“Does it matter?”

“Just out of curiosity.”

“Eight.”

“All to take out one little girl?”

“Guess I’m getting a bit of a rep,” Mattie says.

She knows Claire is looking at her, trying to make a decision.

“They going to try again?” Claire says.

“Probably.” Mattie gets to her feet and moves toward the window.

“When they do,” says Claire. “You know where to find me.”

“Thank you, Claire.”

She takes to the roofs again, running home.

Foggy’s passed out on the couch as she comes down the stairs. He smells like Josie’s. No, he smells like he _drank_ Josie’s. She grins and pulls a blanket out of the wardrobe, and drapes it over him. He stirs and wakes up.

“Mattie?”

“Yeah.”

“I drank the eel, Mattie.” And she has to laugh, after everything that’s happened, even though it lights her side on fire. “Not a euphemism.”

“OK, sure,” she says. “Whatever you say.”

“How was your night?” he mumbles/slurs.

_I nearly died in a dumpster._

“Saved a kid. Made a friend,” she says, and pauses. “I had a good night.”

“That’s good. I’m proud of you, kitten.”

And she realizes that he hasn’t called her that for a while, but she can’t remember when he stopped. She misses it.

“You coming to bed?” she says. “Or are you going to stay here?”

“Nah, ‘m good here.”

“OK.” She runs her hand over his hair. “Love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, this one was rough going...mostly because it was adhering to canon so stubbornly, and refused to get teased out in any different direction. Fortunately, things start diverging in the next chapter!


	3. He Who Must Not Be Named

The first thing Foggy is aware of as he wakes up is the _massive_ headache. The second is Mattie’s hand shaking his shoulder.

“Hey, sweetheart, I know you feel like shit, but I need your help right now,” she says.

Foggy moans and opens his eyes. Mattie is holding a bottle of Advil, so he _might_ forgive her.

“What time is it?” he says.

“Around eight.” She holds out her hand with the pill bottle, and he sees the glass of water on the coffee table beside her. There’s also her glasses, a bottle of concealer, and a makeup sponge, and _oh_ , he looks at her, and there is some spectacular bruising around her right eye. So _that’s_ what she needs his help for.

“You look like shit,” he says articulately, taking the Advil from her. He pops a pill and washes it down with water (his mouth tastes like…better not to examine what his mouth tastes like).

“Yeah, I can feel the bruising,” she says, delicately brushing her fingertips over the bruises. “I want to take a walk before work. Help me look presentable?”

“Sure,” he says, draining the glass of water. Liquids are a beautiful thing. “What happened last night?” He pours some concealer onto the sponge and goes to work on her browline with shaking hands.

“Well, _you_ drank the entire contents of Josie’s bar rail…”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. There was an eel -“

“You mentioned it.”

“When?”

“When I got home.”

Foggy pauses. “I don’t remember that.”

She chuckles. “Yeah, you were pretty out of it.” He daubs at her face. “You have fun?”

“Yeah. Took Karen out. She’s cool, we should hang out with her more.”

“That would be nice.”

Foggy looks at her bruises, bright red against her complexion.

“So,” he says, trying not to sound accusing, “anything else I should know about?”

And she does that _thing_ , where she sucks in her breath, and tries to steel herself, and he knows she’s hiding something.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“What else?” he says, not having any of it.

She closes her eyes. “Broken ribs,” she says quietly.

She has to be able to hear Foggy’s heartrate skyrocket, but he tries to keep his voice calm.

“Ribs?”

“Only two.” She tries to grin.

“Jesus, what the hell were you thinking?”

“The Russians, they had a boy,” she says. “Just a kid. They were going to sell him - I couldn’t -” 

“No, no, don’t tell me.”

She tightens her lips, and then pulls up the hem of her shirt, out of the waistband of her pants. He sucks in a breath when he sees the dressing taped over a wound, spots of blood showing through.

“Mattie -“

“It was worth it,” she says, all steel and hard edges. “Trust me.”

He brushes his hand over the dressing on her side.

“ _You_ didn’t do this, did you?”

“No, I - I met a nurse. She helped me, said she’d be there if I needed her.”

The dressing looks professional, so Foggy believes her, and part of him is relieved that Mattie doesn’t have to rely on his rudimentary first aid skills (part of him is terrified because she has _two broken ribs_ ).

“Probably a good thing,” he says, and he finishes up on the bruises on her face.

She goes out, and he collapses back onto the couch, praying that the Advil will do its work sooner rather than later.

He stumbles into the office an hour later, a cup of coffee clutched in his hand. Karen is already there, looking fresh as a fucking daisy.

“You know the whole, ‘Let’s stay out all night’ thing?” he says.

“Yeah,” she says.

“How about next time we skip the part with the eel?”

“Deal. Where’s Mattie?”

“Oh, she went for a walk. Wanted to - I don’t know, I don’t know why anyone does anything before noon.”

Karen laughs, and then the door opens behind him.

“Hey,” Mattie says. She’s holding a paper bag, and he can see grease stains at the corners. “Figured you wouldn’t get any breakfast, so I got you an egg on a roll from that bodega you like.”

She offers him the foil-wrapped sandwich.

“You are like an angel without wings,” he says with blissful honesty as he takes the sandwich and kisses her forehead.

“Thank you, Andy Dwyer,” she says.

Karen’s making little “aww” noises.

“I got you one too,” says Mattie, pulling out another sandwich.

“Oh, my God, thank you!” says Karen. She takes it, and unwraps it on her desk.

“Heard you two had quite the night,” Mattie says with a grin, pulling out her own breakfast roll and unwrapping it. Karen is making some very unprofessional noises as she bites into her sandwich.

“Yes, it was epic, one for the ages, but it was missing that elusive third element,” says Foggy. He’s got his sandwich half-unwrapped and he bites into it. Dear God, grease and salt are _exactly_ what he needs.

“Well, just let me know next time. I’d be up for it.” She takes a bite of her breakfast.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Was…that a knock?” says Foggy.

“Someone’s at the door,” says Mattie.

“Our door?”

“Uh…Karen?” Karen looks at Mattie, then drops her sandwich onto her desk.

“Right,” Karen says. She stands up and goes to the door. “OK.” She opens the door. 

The guy on the other side is well-dressed in a suit that probably costs more than one of Foggy’s student loan payments. He’s clean-cut in that way that Foggy recognizes as the New York Shark, all angles and white teeth; they saw a lot of those kind of guys at Landman & Zack, the kind of guys who thought Patrick Bateman was a role model.

“Hi,” he says. “Do you do walk-ins?”

They do (not like they have anything else to do), so they take the Shark into the conference room, Karen at the end of the table with a notepad.

“I represent a consortium with diversified interests in the private sector, both domestic and international,” the Shark says. “From time to time, we scout the landscape for promising talent to put on retainer.”

And there’s the magic word.

“Retainer?” Foggy says. The Shark smiles. _Regular income, music to my ears._

“Why are you approaching us?” Mattie says. “Why not a larger firm, Mr., uh…?”

“Confederated Global Investments is my employer,” the Shark rides smoothly over Mattie’s question, and barely spares her a glance.

“That’s not what I was asking.” Foggy resists the urge to elbow her in the side ( _Don’t elbow her in the side, she has two broken ribs._ ), and hopes that she can hear, or sense, his telepathic message of “Don’t screw this up.”

“It’s the only name relevant to this discussion, Miss Murdock.”

“Oh,” she says skeptically. “So, why us?”

“Obviously,” cuts in Foggy, desperate to salvage this before Mattie gets on her high horse, “the larger firms aren’t able to provide the same hands-on attention we pride ourselves on at Nelson and Murdock.”

“It’s a fair question,” the Shark says. “I’m here because my employer does extensive business in Hells’ Kitchen, and who knows it better than two local kids who graduated from Columbia Law, _cum laude_ ,” he points to Foggy, “and _summa cum laude_?”

_I didn’t get_ summa _because of York, that’s all._ Foggy had thought he’d left that old resentment behind, and he’s proud of Mattie, he is.

“You set up shop right here in your backyard despite the fact that both of you were made a very lucrative offer from Landman and Zack where you interned. And, of course,” he smiles, all teeth, “I believe congratulations are in order with regards to your engagement, which I understand is a recent development. Very romantic.”

“You’ve done your homework,” Mattie says dryly.

“My employer expects no less.”

“Then forgive me for being blunt.”

“‘Blunt’ is a strong word.” Foggy puts his foot over Mattie’s under the table.

“In my line of work, I find it refreshing,” the Shark says.

“What is that line of work, exactly?” Mattie says.

Foggy presses down with his foot. “What my partner is trying to say is we’re still building a practice, so we’re very particular about our clientele.”

“I assure you,” the Shark says, “all my employer wants is for you to continue to be ethical, decent people. Good lawyers. And for that, for nothing more than your exceptional skills and your discretion -“ He pulls out an envelope from his jacket and slides it across the table. “- you’ll be fairly compensated.”

Foggy opens the envelope and _Dear God_ those are a lot of zeroes.

“It’s - it’s -“

“And perhaps you should review one of our cases?” continues the Shark. “Before you make a decision? Peace of mind and whatnot.”

And Mattie surprises him, because she says, “That’s a fantastic idea.”

The Shark pulls out a file from his briefcase. “Excellent.” He slides it over to Foggy. “You have -“ he checks his watch - “40 minutes to get to Precinct 15.”

Mattie slides her hand over the file, and opens it, brushing her fingertips over the first page.

“No braille,” she says. Foggy feels his bile rising.

“My apologies, Miss Murdock, but I’m sure we can have braille copies sent to you,” the Shark says smoothly.

Mattie pulls her hand away from the file.

“Like Foggy said, we’re particular about our clientele,” she says. She crosses her legs, and the toe of her shoe digs into Foggy’s calf.

“I’m curious about your…clientele,” says the Shark, making eye contact with Foggy. “Do they all end up working for you after you get them off for murder, or just the pretty ones?”

Time stops.

Foggy sees red. He hasn’t spent eight years watching Mattie deal with sexist assholes for nothing.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid we can’t take your case,” he says. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset anyone -“ the Shark starts.

“I’m afraid you’ve misjudged our practice,” Mattie starts, and Foggy leans forward.

“We are _very_ committed to gender equality here,” he says, “and we don’t tolerate _any_ sexism directed at our employees or our clients, Mr…?”

“I don’t think -“ says the Shark.

“No,” Foggy cuts him off, “but you said it anyway, which gives _us_ an idea of how Confederated Global Investments views women. And that is not how Nelson and Murdock operates.” Mattie is smirking.

“Thank you for your time,” she says. Foggy slides the envelope with the check back across the table. He’ll never tell Mattie how hard it is.

The Shark stands up, buttoning his blazer.

“I feel that we could still -“

“No, we couldn’t,” Foggy says icily. It might be the second-hardest sentence he’s ever said, right below telling Mattie he was in love with her.

“Huh,” says the Shark. He leaves the envelope and the file on the table. “Our case is there for you. 38 minutes, now. Please believe me that it would be a grave mistake to pass this up.”

“Still going to,” says Foggy.

“We’ll see. That check won’t clear if you’re not there.” He leaves, and Foggy can practically see the trail of oil he leaves in his wake.

“Ugh, that was -“ Foggy starts, but Mattie puts her hand on his thigh.

“I have to -“ She brushes her hair behind her ear, tapping her earlobe, and Foggy gets the message. _I have to listen._ She fumbles her way out of the conference room, leaving a very confused Karen, and an only moderately confused Foggy.

“What -“ starts Karen.

“You OK?” Foggy says, sweeping up the file and the envelope together.

“What? Yeah, I’m -“ She shakes her head. “I’m fine. It’s just -“

“You shouldn’t have to deal with assholes like that,” Foggy says, with a voice of finality. He sweeps out of the conference room, and grabs his egg on a roll from Karen’s desk. He’s still eating it when Mattie comes back.

“What was that about?” he says as she shuts the door to his office.

“There were three SUVs outside. Whoever he was working for was waiting there the whole time.” She’s pale, and when she comes around Foggy’s desk, he sees spots of blood on her shirt, under her jacket. She leans on his desk with one hand, and he can tell she’s breathing through a lot of pain. He puts a hand on her back. “So, John Healy,” she says, straightening up.

“Who?”

“That’s the case he wanted us to take.”

“Oh.” Foggy reaches over to where he tossed the file and opens it. Sure enough, right at the top is the name John Healy. “Yeah, uh, murder charge,” he says, skimming the top page. “He…Jesus, he beat a guy to death with a bowling ball.” He looks up at her, confused. “We’re not taking the case.”

“No.” She grins. “But since when did a global investment firm pick up the tab for a murder suspect? Aren’t you a little curious why they were so desperate to have us take it?”

_More than a little._

“Hey, Karen!” Foggy calls.

Karen opens the door and pokes her head in. “Yeah?”

“Do you mind digging into - what was it?” Foggy opens the envelope and sighs as he pulls out the check. “Confederated Global Investments,” he reads off the corner of the check.

“We’re not -“ she says in confusion.

“No, we just want to know why they were so interested in us,” says Mattie.

Karen nods. “Sure,” she says brightly, and she leaves, closing the door. Foggy turns back to the case file.

“OK, so apparently, the witness statement says that Mr Healy here approached a Janos Prohaszka at a bowling alley, and then an altercation broke out in which two of Prohaszka’s associates were injured, and Prohaszka’s head was bashed in with a bowling ball.”

“Prohaszka?” Mattie turns so that she’s perched on the edge of his desk, crossing her arms.

“Yeah, that mean something to you?”

Mattie’s tilting her head in interest. “Sounds familiar. What’d he do?”

“Uh, owned a taxi company. Kitchen Cab.” And _that_ has Mattie sitting up straight.

“What’re the names of Prohaszka’s associates?”

“Uh, Sandor Kovacs and Radoslav Pastukh. No statements from either of them.” Mattie has frozen in place, and Foggy can practically see the gears turning in her head. “What? What am I missing?”

“You remember that defense case I took for L&Z in January?”

“The attempted murder one?” It was Mattie’s first defense case. She’d hated it.

“Yeah. Victim’s name was Radoslav Pastukh. _He_ worked for Kitchen Cab.”

Part of Foggy wants to ask _How do you remember that, nine months later?_ but it _had_ been a big deal for her at the time. And she can have a scarily good memory sometimes.

“It could be a coincidence,” says Foggy hopefully.

“You really think so?” she says dryly.

“If I do, can we walk away from this and never think about it again?” It’s worth a shot, but she’s not listening, because she’s fidgeting with the fabric of her pants, the way she does when she’s far away.

“Cigarettes and cologne,” she whispers, and he doesn’t think she meant him to hear it.

“What?”

She shakes herself, and winces when she moves her ribs the wrong way.

“Last night - there was a guy - stank of cigarettes and cologne. I _knew_ it smelled familiar, I couldn’t place it, but I think - he was there at the arraignment in January.”

“Was he involved in the case…?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t - I didn’t hear him say anything, but -“ She takes off her glasses and runs her hand over her face. “I don’t know.” He watches her set her jaw. “But I think I know someone who does.”

“Is this - no, you’re not going out again tonight,” Foggy says, a little pissed off that she’s managed to get him to talk about _this._

“I’m not going to get into a fight, I just need to talk to Pastukh,” she says in a tone that’s _supposed_ to sound reasonable and comforting. It’s not.

“You have -“ Foggy checks himself and lowers his voice, “- two broken ribs and a _fucking open wound_ , you _can’t_.”

“Foggy,” she says, cupping his cheek, “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Foggy throws himself back in his chair with a groan.

“I don’t want to know how you define ‘careful,’” he says. She doesn’t say anything, just brushes her hand down his arm and squeezes his hand. He’s lost the argument.

“We should do some actual work,” she says. “Were we going to try to file Karen’s civil suit today?”

_Right._

“Uh, yeah, I got everything printed out next door….” He fumbles around on his desk, and brushes the envelope with the check against Mattie’s hand by accident. She picks it up, and pulls out the check, brushing her fingertips over it. She sucks in a breath.

“Oh…” she breathes. “Yeah, I can see what the appeal was.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll never cash it, so it doesn’t matter,” Foggy grumbles. “I’d shred it, but we don’t even have a shredder.”

“Hey,” she says putting her hand on his arm, “we’ll be OK. We’ll get a nice big settlement for Karen, and that’ll keep us going.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that. Let’s win cases and make money.” He smiles, and brings her hand to his face.

“Not about that,” she says, but she’s smiling too.

As of noon, Karen Page has officially filed a lawsuit against the NYPD for her assault and attempted murder while in custody. They’re suing for a _lot_ of money.

***

The offices of Kitchen Cab are empty when Mattie sets out to find Radoslav Pastukh. They shouldn’t be, not at any time of night, but it appears that Janos Prohaszka’s death has all but dissolved the company. Their files aren’t gone yet, though, and Mattie finds Pastukh’s employee file, beautifully printed with wonderfully clear ink indentation, and memorizes his home address.

Pastukh lives in a tenement on 38th; nothing glamorous, just like any of dozens of tenements in Hell’s Kitchen. She lands on the roof, and listens, using process of elimination. Pastukh doesn’t have a family (his emergency contact in his file was a sister in New Jersey), so none of the apartments with sleeping children are his. None of the ones where the only occupants are older than fifty (Pastukh’s in his forties, according to his date of birth), or younger than thirty. None where the occupants are all female. Which leaves…three apartments. She hones in on them. One is a couple having sex; they’re whispering each other’s names, and they’re Gary and Mark, so she’ll assume that Pastukh isn’t using an alias. The second is a man watching TV - a definite possibility. The third is a man on the phone. He’s speaking Russian, and Mattie listens closer, and hears the woman on the other end call him Radoslav.

_Bingo._

She slides down the fire escape and crouches outside his window, waiting for the call to finish. He’s pacing around the apartment, his heart hammering. He hangs up when he’s in his bedroom, and she can hear clothing being thrown around. He’s packing. She slides the window open and puts her leg through, her foot landing in the kitchen sink. Dirty dishes move under her foot, and she hears Pastukh stop and listen. Silently, she drops to the floor and flicks off the light in the kitchen.

There’s a scrape of metal from the bedroom, and she can smell gun oil and metal. As Pastukh creeps toward the kitchen, she makes out the outline of a handgun held between his hands. He steps into the darkened kitchen, gun first, and she swings her arm up, twisting his wrist, sending the gun to the floor as she throws Pastukh face-first into the fridge. Her ribs scream at her. She grabs him by the arm and shoulder, twisting it up behind him, and shoves his face into the counter.

“Going somewhere, Radoslav?” she whispers. He smells of alcohol, and growls something in Russian. She tightens her grip on his arm. “English, Radoslav.”

“Fuck you,” he says, unsurprisingly.

“Right back at you. Who’re you running from?”

“Who do you think? Those assholes you work for.”

“I don’t work for the Russians,” she says. It’s a shot in the dark but…Prima cigarettes and cheap cologne. She knows they’re connected somehow.

Pastukh swears in Russian. “Not those assholes. The man at the top.”

She freezes, because she has no idea what he’s talking about. Then she thinks of Confederated Global and a cheque with more zeroes than she cares to think about, and realizes that there is so much more going on than she thought.

“I’m going to let you go. Try anything, and I will hurt you. Understand?”

“Fuck,” Pastukh says. “Yes.”

“Good.” She lets him go, and casually kicks the gun across the room away from him. She can’t sense any knives within reach, so he probably won’t try anything. He turns around, and snorts cynically.

“Of course. Thought you were…urban legend the Ranskahovs made up to cover their stupidity.”

“In the flesh,” she says, leaning against the counter opposite him. “Who killed your boss?”

“What does a girl in a mask care?”

“I care when a guy gets a bowling ball through the skull. The assassin’s name was John Healy. Who hired him?”

“I don’t know,” Pastukh lies. She jumps forward and punches him.

“Did I mention that I’ll know if you’re lying?” she says calmly.

“Bitch,” he growls.

“I’ve been called a lot worse,” she says, unimpressed. “Who hired Healy?”

“I don’t know…” Pastukh says, and even though the words are the same, the meaning is different, and he’s not lying.

“Who’s the man at the top?”

“I don’t know!” Pastukh explodes. “January, the Ranskahovs try to force us out. Some people get dead, the Ranskahovs curl up like pussies after a few months. Then a man in a suit comes to Prohaszka, says his employer wants to buy the company for the Ranskahovs. Prohaszka says no. He says he wants to negotiate, Prohaszka says OK.”

“And they decided to negotiate with a bowling ball,” she says. Pastukh nods. “Who’s the man’s employer?”

“He will not say name. But we hear, about the man at the top. Since the Battle, everyone whispering about him. Say he’s in real estate, in heroin, in prostitution. He works with Ranskahovs, Triad, Yakuza. But never a name.”

“Real estate?”

“You hear about Union Allied? Prohaszka says that’s him.”

_Shit. What are we mixed up in?_

“The man in the suit,” she says. “What did he look like?”

“Glasses. Dark hair. Like any fucking asshole down on Wall Street.”

She resists asking if he had a watch. She suspects he did.

“You get a name?” she says.

Pastukh snorts. “No.”

She steps back and jerks her head towards the bedroom.

“Pack up,” she says. “Get out of Hell’s Kitchen. And don’t come back.”

“You think that’s not the plan? Prohaszka thought he could negotiate with the Devil. I’m not that stupid.” He crosses the kitchen. When he’s standing in the doorway, he turns back. “Whoever he is, you fuck him up, little girl. That asshole in the suit too.”

She doesn’t say a word, and waits for him to go back into the bedroom before she slides out the window.

As she runs over the rooftops on her way home, she tries to put together all the information Pastukh gave her.

_There’s a man at the top. Union Allied, Confederated Global, John Healy, the Russians, they’re all connected. Blake and Hoffman, too._ And then there’s the mention of the Triads and the Yakuza, and her head hurts just thinking about it all.

“You hurt?” Foggy says as she comes down the stairs.

“No,” she says, pulling off the mask. “We just talked.”

He hesitates. “No, I’m not going to ask. I’m not going to hear this.”

And she just sighs, because she wishes she could talk to him, that there wasn’t this gulf between them.

***

Foggy wakes up with his arm wrapped tightly around Mattie. She’s warm, and he presses his nose into her hair, and then remembers about the _two broken ribs_.

“Shit,” he whispers, pulling his arm off her. She groans a little and he sees a wave of pain wash over her face before she even opens her eyes.

_I can’t lose you. You promised you’d always come back._

He doesn’t say it. Instead, he watches her haul herself upright with a groan, and wonders how long he can watch her suffer.

At the office, he’s going over some paperwork with Karen when he hears an extensive amount of swearing from Mattie’s office.

“Everything OK?” he says, as he and Karen poke their heads into her office. 

“I just called the courthouse. You know who’s representing Healy?” Because of course she’s keeping tabs on the case.

“No, I don’t,” he says wearily.

“Goddamn Larry Cranston.” And now Foggy’s as angry as she is.

“That asshole?”

“Yeah,” she snarls. “Bet he’s _loving_ that giant paycheck.”

“Who’s Larry Cranston?” says Karen timidly.

“An asshole,” says Mattie, at the same time that Foggy says, “A fucking tool.”

“Mattie dated him in law school,” Foggy finishes.

“For, like, two seconds,” Mattie corrects him. Mattie is normally fairly mellow about her exes, but she reserves a special vitriol for Larry Cranston, who had flat-out accused her of cheating on him with Foggy when they’d broken up.

“Yeah, well, are you really surprised that he’s taking dirty money?” Foggy says.

“Not even a little,” she spits. “Speaking of which, Karen, did you find out anything on Confed Global?”

“Yeah,” Karen says, “uh, it’s a subsidiary of a holding company of a loan-out to a holding subsidiary and on and on and on.”

Mattie just closes her eyes and sighs. _Dead end._ Then Foggy’s brain catches up to what Mattie had said that started this whole conversation.

“Wait, are they already going to trial?” Foggy says.

“Yeah, sounds like _Larry_ took the 180.80 date.”

“Why would he do that?” It doesn’t make any sense.

“Because he’s a terrible lawyer?” It’s not exactly true, but it’s always comforting whenever Mattie says it.

“Right. Well, sounds like they deserve each other.” Foggy steps forward and puts his hands on Mattie’s arms. “Larry will fuck up the case, Healy’ll get convicted, justice will be served.”

“You make it sounds so simple,” she says dryly.

“I have faith in the justice system.” He smiles and spreads his arms. “Isn’t that why we have this glamorous life?”

And that, at least, gets a smile out of her.

She goes out again that night, but comes home shaking her head. He doesn’t ask why.

The next morning, the NYPD’s legal department sends them a settlement offer for Karen’s civil suit. It’s not nearly as much as they’d sued for, but it’s still a _lot_ of money for people like them. They sit Karen down in the conference room to lay out out for her.

“What do you think I should do?” Karen says, her eyes big and blue.

“You have to be the one to decide that,” Mattie says. “You’re the only one who knows what’s best for you. Do you want this whole thing to be over, or do you want to keep fighting?”

“Because we can win this,” Foggy says. “If you want us to. We can get you a hell of a lot more money. But it’ll be a long fight.”

“And a public one,” Karen says.

“That’s actually a good thing,” Mattie says. “They don’t want this to become public knowledge, they have enough trouble on the PR front, so that’s leverage for us.”

“But…if we did go public…my name would be out there.” She sounds scared by the prospect.

“Yes.”

Karen nods. She flips through the documents that Foggy had printed out for her (he’d begged the financial office next door, and they’d charged him ten cents a sheet for it).

“Take the settlement,” she says. “I want to put this behind me.”

Mattie nods. Foggy shows Karen where to sign on the documents, and scans them to send to the NYPD, feeling vaguely optimistic. He and Mattie can live off of Karen’s legal fees for quite a while. Then he glances across the office to Mattie, who is brooding over her computer.

_Guess it takes more than a settlement to make her happy._

“Where’s Karen?” he says, realizing that their client/office manager is missing.

“Went for lunch,” Mattie calls.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“She’s been taking pretty long lunches.”

“Want me to talk to her about it?”

“Well, you _are_ in charge of HR,” he jokes.

“Sure,” she says mildly. He realizes that she has her headphones in, and guesses that she’s keeping track of the Healy trial. He sighs.

_No good can come of this._

***

The jury deliberations have already started on the Healy trial by the time Mattie needs to go out in the evening, so she makes Foggy promise to keep checking for the verdict while she’s out. She heads to the 15th precinct, crouching on the roof. Blake and Hoffman were on the day shift yesterday, but she can hear them inside now, bickering back and forth.

As much as she dislikes Blake, Hoffman was the one who made the call when Karen was released. She may suspect that Blake is as deeply involved, but she _knows_ Hoffman is in contact with the man at the top. Or, at least, with someone who can lead her to him. She just hopes it’s not the sleazeball with the watch, because finding him will probably be a nightmare. _Looking for a guy with glasses and a watch. No, I don’t know what he looks like. Or what the watch looks like. But it’s really annoying._

At midnight, the shifts change. Hoffman lives uptown, so will have to head to the Port Authority subway station to get home. Blake lives in Brooklyn, so he’ll want to head to the Hudson Yards station instead. They walk together along for a block, and Mattie follows them, a silent figure on the rooftop edges. Blake peels off to head down to 34th street, and Hoffman turns uptown toward 42nd. Mattie runs ahead and slides down a fire escape a few buildings down, dropping into an alley filled with dumpsters. When Hoffman passes by the entrance, she reaches out and one-armed swings him around, introducing his face to the brick wall. She hears his nose break and smells blood. The devil stretches. She kicks at Hoffman’s leg, and it collapses under him, bringing him to his knees. She hauls him by his coat behind the nearest dumpster, out of sight from the street.

Hoffman tries to reach for his gun, but she twists his arm, breaking his wrist and sending the gun to the ground. She kicks it away.

“Listen to me very carefully,” she says, her voice low and deadly. “I know you’re on the take. I know you’re feeding information to someone. I need to know who.”

“I don’t know -“ he lies, and she punches him in the face.

“I wasn’t finished. You’re going to tell me who he is, and if you lie to me, I will know. And I will not be pleased.”

“I’m not -“ She doesn’t even let him finish the lie, just punches him again.

“We both know you are. Who is he?”

“I can’t -“ That one’s true. She punches him again, twice. “I can’t!” he cries out, and the agony in his voice is more than physical. She wraps her hand around his jaw, holding his face.

“Tell me,” she growls.

“I can’t,” he whispers, almost sobbing. “You don’t understand what he is. You don’t understand what he’ll do.” She can smell the fear on him, and she doesn’t think it’s all because of her. She jerks his jaw towards her.

“I want a name.”

“We can’t say his name!”

_Who is this guy, Voldemort?_ she resists saying. She punches him in the gut instead.

“Tell me his name,” she growls. He hesitates, and she punches again. “His name.”

“I can’t -“

Punch. “Tell me!”

He tells her.

***

Foggy looks over the public records of the Healy trial, and decides that, if he’s going to be completely objective, Larry Cranston did an _adequate_ job for the defense (although Foggy would have done things differently). Around nine, he sees an update that a mistrial has been declared. A hung jury.

_Mattie’s going to be pissed._

But she’s not, when she comes down the stairs, breathless and bloody. She waves a hand when he tells her about the mistrial.

“It doesn’t matter. I got Hoffman,” she says.

“Whoa, what? No, I can’t hear this.”

But she’s not listening. “He gave me a name. I have a name. For the man at the top.” She’s not smiling, but she’s _glowing_ , lit from the inside. “Fisk. Wilson Fisk.”

Foggy was right. No good can come of this.


	4. I Can't Stop

Wilson Fisk is a ghost. Mattie can’t find any public records with his name on them. Nothing online, no social media, no mentions in articles or on websites. It shouldn’t be possible, in this day and age, and she’s sure if she had the resources of, say, the NSA, she might be able to dig something up, but she’s doubtful that they would be willing to help her.

So it’s back to the old tactic of punching information out of people.

Mattie decides to take on the Russians first. She’s pissed off at them about the boy and her broken ribs, so she figures they deserve her attention. They’re easy enough to track, now that they’re taking over Kitchen Cab; all she has to do is follow them to and from the building. There are two that she takes as the leaders: the Ranskahov brothers, she’s learned. She follows one to an old commercial building, where he and one of his lackeys are negotiating to buy weapons. She kills the lights, and lets the devil out. The arms dealers she knocks out. Ranskahov shoots at her, so she dives toward him, rolling to her feet and, kicking him in the head. The lackey pulls a knife, and gets in a good swipe at her shoulder before she can disarm him, breaking his arm. She straddles the lackey, punching him.

“Where is Wilson Fisk?” she demands. The lackey says something in Russian. She keeps punching, keeps asking, until she notices that Ranskahov is moving. But not toward her. He flees out the door, pulling out his phone and screaming in Russian into it. She hears a car start, and since she’s not getting anywhere with the lackey, she kicks him through the window, hearing him bounce off the metal body of the car. Ranskahov peels away, tires squealing, leaving his man lying in the alley.

She stops by to see Claire at her friend’s apartment on 54th. Claire gamely stitches up her shoulder, teasing her about getting body armor (“It would slow me down too much.”).

“You worried about me?” Mattie says, grinning.

“What if I were?” says Claire.

“I would tell you I’m a big girl, and not to be.”

“Right. That’s why you keep ending up here.”

It’s out of Mattie’s mouth before she can stop herself. “Well, maybe I just like the sound of your voice.” _Jesus Christ, did I just use my line on Claire?_ Claire’s straight, she’s pretty certain, and Mattie loves Foggy, but…it’s nice, bantering with Claire. It’s nice, not having to hide, not having to tiptoe around certain subjects.

She changes the subject anyway, and gets Claire to put her number in Mattie’s burner phone. She’d considered getting Foggy and Claire ones, too, but that seemed like overkill. She leaves after asking if Claire knows who Wilson Fisk is; she shouldn’t get any more involved in Claire’s life than she already is.

When she comes down the stairs, Foggy has his laptop out, his heart beating with anxiety.

“Mattie, you should hear this,” he says, not even bothering to ask if she’s hurt.

“OK?”

He clicks, and audio starts playing. Mattie recognizes the voice of President Ellis.

“Good evening,” Ellis says. “I’m here tonight to address growing concerns among our citizens of the threats we face that are not of this world…”

His speech announces the formation of the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, charged with addressing alien threats, given “full licence to act with whatever authority is necessary.”

“Define ‘necessary authority,’” Matilda Murdock, Esq. says. Her mind is immediately jumping to American citizens being detained without due process.

Foggy slams the laptop closed.

“Not the point, Mattie,” he snaps.

“Then what?”

He holds his hand out, breathing hard.

“You don’t see how this affects you?”

“Why would it?”

“Because you’re -“ He cuts himself off before he starts shouting. “You’re exactly what that task force is going to be looking for.”

“I’m not an alien, Foggy.”

“Do you think they’re going to care?!”

“How the hell are they going to find out?”

“Seriously?!” Foggy’s heart is hammering in his chest. “What if somebody finds out about you? What if they talk about the blind girl who can backflip off buildings? You don’t think that these guys are going to be interested in that?”

“Yeah, well, nobody knows yet.”

“And what if you get caught?” he continues, not hearing her. “You think the NYPD are just going to accept that a blind girl can do all the shit you can do?”

“So I don’t get caught,” she says, exasperated. “Not like I was meaning to do that before.”

“ _But what if you do?!_ ” he nearly screams. “We’re not talking jail time, we’re talking about you spending the rest of your life as a lab rat!”

“That’s not -“ It’s not fair of him, to tap into some of her oldest fears.

“Yeah, it is. You remember what SHIELD was doing? These guys are going to pick up right were they left off.” He throws himself back on the couch. “You have to stop.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Bullshit! You’re so goddamn obsessed with this that you can’t see how dangerous it is! It’s not just mobsters or whoever, now, it’s the fucking government, too, you can’t fight them all, somebody’s going to get lucky, and then I’m going to lose you, and -“ He breaks off, his voice choking. She goes to him, but he pushes her away. “Don’t,” he says coldly.

“Foggy -“

“I’m going to bed.” He stalks off to the bedroom, leaving her alone and feeling so very, very small.

He’s not asleep when she comes into the bedroom after showering, but he doesn’t say a word, and rolls on his side so that his back is to her.

She doesn’t sleep at all. She knows he doesn’t either.

The tension is thick in the office all day. At one point, she’s perched on Karen’s desk as they go over website hosting options, and Karen sucks in a breath.

“What did you do to your leg?” she says.

“What?”

“You’ve got a giant bruise, right there,” Karen says, putting her fingertip right where the hem of Mattie’s skirt has ridden up. Mattie hears Foggy’s heartbeat speed up, hears him quietly walk to the door of his office.

“Just got a bit overenthusiastic at the gym,” Mattie says, putting on a smile.

“Oh.”

Foggy crosses his arms, and Mattie just wants to tell him, _It’ll be fine_. He stands there for a moment, she’s sure he’s looking at her, before going back to his desk.

Karen goes home early, and Mattie decides it would be better if she did, too. She’s not sure how Foggy’s feeling, but she could certainly use some time away from him.

“Where are you going?” he snaps as she starts to pack up.

“Home. Then out.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Dammit, Foggy!” she says, slamming her bag on her desk. “You don’t get to tell me what to do -“

“We have plans,” he says loudly, overriding her. “With Pam? Remember?”

She pauses. She remembers the phone call with Pam. Had it been for today?

“Shit,” she says. “I forgot.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did.” And with that, he goes back into his office and closes the door. Mattie throws her bag across her office.

She’s tidied up by the time Pam arrives an hour later.

“Oh, my God, this place is _adorable_!” Pam squeals.

“Well, that’s not patronizing at all,” Mattie says, putting on a grin.

“No, I mean it, it’s great, it’s so great.” Pam touches Mattie’s shoulder, then leans in to bump her cheek against Mattie’s, kissing the air. “So where’s the hot secretary I’ve heard so much about?”

“Office manager,” Mattie says.

“She went home early,” Foggy says from his office door. “Hey, Pam.”

“Hey, Foggy.” Pam hugs Foggy. “You guys ready to go?”

“Yeah, just give us a sec.”

Pam is taking them to a restaurant she thinks could work for their wedding reception. She’s friends with the chef.

“He only just opened last month,” she says as they walk to the restaurant. “So we can probably convince him to give you a discount. There’s a private dining room, it would be perfect for you guys. Oh! And the pastry chef does this _zuppa inglese_ that’s to die for, so you could probably even get away with not ordering a cake.”

“What’s _zuppa inglese_?” says Mattie.

“It’s an Italian cake - my mom used to make it for my birthday. Trust me, it’s incredible.”

Foggy holds the door to the restaurant for Pam and Mattie.

“Um…” he says. “It looks great, but it’s a little more…upscale? Than we were thinking?” He shifts uncomfortably, and Mattie thinks of their debts and their lack of clients.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we can work out some reasonable pricing, and tonight’s on me. I got a raise.”

“Congratulations,” says Foggy automatically. Mattie pauses.

“I’m sorry, do you _want_ me to make a dirty joke about that?” she teases.

“Shut up, it had nothing to do with Jeri. All the PAs got them. Hi, Pam Schiarelli, Marcello was supposed to make a reservation for me?” She’s talking to the _maitre d’_.

“Got you right here,” the woman says.

“And he said we could have a look at the private room?”

“Of course. I’ll get the manager.”

The manager gives them a tour of the private dining room (“Capacity is twenty, we can reduce the table size for a smaller party.”). While Foggy is going over the pricing with the manager, Pam tugs Mattie just outside the room.

“Are you two OK?” she says.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” Mattie says.

“You haven’t said two words to each other since I walked into your office.”

Mattie sighs. “We just - had a stupid fight last night.”

Pam puts her hand on Mattie’s arm. “Do you want to talk about it? We can send Foggy home after dinner, go grab some drinks…”

“No,” Mattie says, shaking her head. “It’s fine, we just - need to deal with it.”

“Is it the wedding? Stressing you out?”

Mattie laughs at the absurd idea that her wedding would be the most stressful thing in her life.

“No,” she says. “It’s not the wedding.”

“If you need any more help -“

“You’re doing so much already, Pam, I really do appreciate it.” She takes Pam’s hand and squeezes it. “I’m OK.”

“OK, but you let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.”

Dinner is surprisingly pleasant, once Pam’s chef friend Marcello comes out, introduces himself, and then insists that they taste about six different wines (on the house, too). Mattie feels Foggy relaxing next to her, and even if he’s still short with her, he’s not _angry_ anymore.

They’re in the middle of finishing their _zuppa inglese_ when Mattie’s phone goes off. Unknown number.

“Mattie Murdock,” she says.

“Uh, hi,” slurs a man’s voice. “I need to talk to Nelson or Murdock?”

“…This is Murdock.”

“Hi…someone gave me this card, said to call you?”

“What is this regarding?”

“I…got arrested? But I didn’t do it. Well, I did do it…”

“What’s your name, sir?”

“Ed.”

“OK…Ed…are you asking us to represent you?”

“Yeah! Yeah?”

“OK, where are you right now?”

“I’m at the…police station?”

“Which one?”

“The…one on 35th?” _The 15th._

“All right, Ed, you sit tight, we’re going to come get you. What’s your last name?”

“Robson.”

“OK, just make sure you don’t talk to any cops before we get there.”

“OK.”

He hangs up.

“Was…that a client?” says Foggy.

“Yeah. We need to go fish him out of the drunk tank, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh. Great,” says Foggy unenthusiastically.

“Pam, sorry, we have to go.”

“It’s OK. I’m dating a lawyer, I’m used to it,” Pam says, standing up. She hugs Mattie, then Foggy. “Give me a call when you can, I’ll take you to meet Jeri’s tailor about the dress.”

“Yeah, I will. Thanks.”

And Foggy bundles her out the door and into a cab. Neither of them say anything for the whole ride.

Ed, it turns out, was arrested for attempted arson. Someone had seen him splashing gasoline outside the townhouse where he lives; according to Ed, it had been an accident, and the resulting (small) fire was due to his cigarette falling out of his mouth as he tried to stop the gasoline can from spilling. He’s not lying, although the alcohol fumes that even Foggy can smell mean that his story is patchy at best. When Foggy asks him if the alcohol _might_ have contributed to the accident, Ed bursts into tears and blurts out that his wife just left him. It’s awkward for everyone.

While they wait for Ed to compose himself, Mattie overhears some of the detectives talking in the bullpen.

“Hoffman’s out for a few days,” she hears Blake say.

“What happened?” says someone else.

“Mugging. Got him pretty bad.”

“Fucking animals around here.”

_You have no idea._

Mattie convinces the arresting officer (Simpson, he introduces himself) to drop the charges, since there was no property damage except for a burnt bag of garbage. Foggy calls Ed’s neighbor to come pick him up.

“You guys gonna be around here a lot?” says Simpson, leaning against the desk next to Mattie while Foggy signs the paperwork to get Ed released.

“Hopefully,” Mattie says.

“Well, you know, the station can be pretty tricky, but if you need any help, I’m usually around…”

“I think I’m fine, thanks.”

Ed’s neighbor is a small older woman with a Caribbean accent, who sighs and clucks over him, before thanking Mattie and Foggy.

“He doesn’t deserve this,” she says. “That wife of his left him in bad shape.”

“Ask him to give us a call in the morning,” Foggy says, giving her his card. As the door closes behind them, Foggy turns to Mattie. “OK, let’s go. We should get his paperwork ready.” He takes her hand and wraps it around his elbow, leading her out the door. “My mom wanted me to be a butcher, you know that?” he says neutrally.

“Oh, not the butcher story,” Mattie says. She’s heard it a million times.

“I said, ‘No, Mom, I want to be a lawyer.’ I don’t remember what I said next.”

“No, you never do.”

“But I’m fairly certain it wasn’t about bailing out a piss-drunk electrician who nearly burned his house down,” he snaps at her. “Let’s cross.”

“Ed’s wife left him, Foggy. It was an accident.” She hesitates. “Admittedly, involving cigarettes and gasoline, but still.” Isn’t this why they set up shop in the first place?

“I could be carving my own corned beef,” Foggy continues, “Making my own pickles, have a little shop of my own.”

“You got your own office.”

“We have office space,” he says, disappointment in his voice. “An actual office would involve plantery and equipment, fax machines, or whatever successful people use.”

“I don’t think they use fax machines anymore,” Mattie says dryly, trying to lighten the mood. 

“How would I know?” he says in frustration. “Which is endemic to the problem.” He pulls her to a stop. “Mattie, what if we’re doing this all wrong? What if Landman and Zack was the way to go?”

“You don’t think that.”

“You can’t _know_ that.”

“Yeah, I do,” she says, stepping in and putting her hand over his heart. “You hated interning there.”

He groans and pushes her hand away. “Don’t _do_ that. I hate being broke, too.”

“You think Landman and Zack would have helped out Ed?” she snaps.

“No, but they had free bagels, every morning. And they had furniture that didn’t smell like a pack of cigarettes. And elevators…God, I miss the elevators.”

“Hey,” she says, putting her hands on his arms. She slides one up to his face. “We’re doing good here, Foggy.”

“Are we?”

“Yeah, we’re making a difference.”

Her phone rings in her bag as she says it. But it’s not chirping someone’s name or “unknown number.” It’s just ringing.

“Is that your burner?” Foggy whispers.

There are only two people with the number, and one of them is standing right in front of her.

“Claire?” she says, picking up the call.

“Is that your nurse friend?” says Foggy. She puts her hand on his chest to shush him.

“Claire?” She can hear…it sounds like struggling. “Claire, can you hear me?” And a scream. _No, please no._ “Claire!” The call cuts out. _Oh, God._ “I have to go.”

“There’s a cab right there,” Foggy says, his arm already out.

“Foggy, I -“

“Just get in the cab!” He pulls her in.

“Where to?” comes the cabbie’s voice.

“Tenth and 54th!” Mattie snaps. As the cab starts to move, she tries to redial, her hands shaking. The phone rings, then goes to voicemail. “Shit.”

Foggy leans over, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and leaning in to her.

“What’d you hear?” he whispers, so the driver can’t hear them.

“I heard her screaming,” she whispers back. His heartbeat accelerates, and she smells adrenaline.

“It’s going to be OK,” he says, squeezing her shoulders.

When they pass 52nd, he pulls out his wallet, and gets the fare ready. As soon as they reach 54th and 10th, he shoves the money at the driver, and they’re sprinting out of the cab. Somebody is already opening the door to Claire’s friend’s building, so they grab the door, running past the woman with the stroller who swears at them in Spanish. Mattie leads the way, pounding up the stairs, not caring who sees her. She flings the unlocked apartment door open, and is greeted with nothing but cold air from the open window and the faint smell of blood. Foggy comes up to the door as she bends down to find Claire’s phone near her foot.

“They’re gone,” she says, tossing the phone aside. There’s a chair next to her, which she throws against the wall.

“Whoa, hey,” Foggy says, putting his hands on her shoulder.

“I have to find her.”

“Yeah, you do,” he says decisively. “But chucking furniture around isn’t going to help her.” She’s breathing hard, everything is buzzing, the electricity is too loud, and Foggy’s hands are cupping her face. “Breathe. What’s you’re range?”

“What?”

“They can’t have gone far. Can you hear them?”

She closes her eyes and tries to focus. _Block out the sounds, layer by layer._ The way Stick taught her. She breaks out of Foggy’s grip and climbs out on to the fire escape. The heel of her shoe slips through the metal grating, so she takes both off and hands them to Foggy. She stands there, leaning on the railing. And then she hears it: Russian, the sound of a car, and a name. _Santino._

She tries to hold onto them for another moment, find where they’re going, but she can’t. She climbs back into the apartment and takes her shoes back.

“I heard them. I don’t know where they are. But I know how they found her,” she says, putting her shoes back on.

“OK, where to?”

“You should go home,” she says, heading for the door.

“I’m here now. I can help.” He pulls the apartment door closed behind him. “And a cab will get you there faster than running around in those shoes.”

He, unfortunately, has a point.

“Fine.” They clatter down the stairs as fast as they can, and Foggy finds them a cab on 10th within about thirty seconds. Mattie gives Claire’s address, and grips Foggy’s hand hard as the cab barrels down 11th. He never complains.

“Keep the meter running,” she says as the cab pulls up outside Claire’s.

“I can -“

“Just stay here.”

The outer door to Claire’s building is locked, so she runs into the alley, the one where Santino found her that night, and vaults up the fire escapes to the roof, running down the stairs to Claire’s apartment. The door is unlocked, and she can hear a frightened heartbeat inside, and smell blood. She pushes the door open, and Santino flinches, curled up on the floor.

“It’s OK, it’s me, Santino,” she says in English, then she remembers that he doesn’t speak much English. She lifts up her glasses so he can see her face. “Do you remember me?” she says in Spanish.

Santino is drowning in a sea of fear and guilt, and he sobs out the story of being interrogated and threatened by the Russians. He doesn’t say that they beat him, but she can smell blood on his face.

“It’s not your fault, Santino,” she says in Spanish as the anger rises in her throat. “It’s mine.”

And through the fear that’s consuming him, Santino remembers something.

“I saw them get into a taxi,” he says in Spanish. “But not in the back, in the front. Like it was theirs.”

“What was the company? Did you see a name?”

“Veles. Veles Taxi.”

She reaches out and brushes a hand over his hair. “I’m going to find her. I promise.”

Then she’s running back down the stairs and into the cab where Foggy is waiting, and she really hopes that this isn’t a Veles cab.

“You get something?” Foggy says.

“Yeah.” She gives the driver their address.

“We’re just going home?”

“There’s stuff I need at home,” she says grimly.

“Oh. Right.”

Once they’re safely in their apartment with the door closed, she has Foggy Google Veles Taxi’s fleet garage while she changes. He gives her the address as she pulls on the mask.

“I’m -“ she starts. “I’m going to bring her back here, when I find her.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I want to meet her,” he says, his heart pounding. She nods. There’s nothing more to say.

Then she’s running across the rooftops. Two blocks away from Veles’ garage, she can hear Claire screaming, and the devil screams with her. As much as she’d love to dive in and start throwing punches left and right, she needs to be smart about this. Claire is hurt, and there are too many men for Mattie to take without risking that one of them will grab Claire.

On the rooftop, she slows her breathing, and focuses. Instead of blocking out the background noise, she follows the flow of electricity through the building, ignoring everything else. The hum is an intense buzzing on the ground floor, centred next to a fire exit. She breaks a window on an upper floor and slides into the offices, moving silently through old and run-down file cabinets and desks. The stairs take her to the fire exit, and she finds the breaker box.

“I will begin breaking you, piece at a time,” growls one of the Russians, and Mattie’s had enough. She uses her forearm to trip all the switches at the same time, and the sound of electricity stops. There’s some shouting in Russian, and then she hears one of the men coming around the corner to her.

She strikes out with her foot first, planting it firmly in his gut. Her elbow comes down on the back of his head, and she throws him into the wall for good measure. She’d hoped to keep it quiet, but she hears, “Mikhail? Mikhail?” being called from the main garage.

And Claire _laughs_. It’s full and hearty, or would be if she weren’t hurt so badly, and it would be a beautiful sound if they weren’t in the middle of men who wanted them both dead.

“You want to know her name?” Claire says. “Ask her yourself.”

There’s a pulley with a cable near Mattie as she slinks around the corner in the shadows. She tugs on the cable, pulling out its full length, then loops it. She can smell the adrenaline, even under the heavy scent of Claire’s blood, and everyone’s heart is pounding. They’re afraid. _Good_.

She throws the loop over the closest man’s neck, and yanks him back, behind a bank of cars. Two punches, and he’s out, and she takes his guns and sends them skittering across the floor.

For a moment, the Russians look at the guns on the floor. Mattie moves silently around the car, staying in the shadows.

The Russians open fire on the corner where she’d been hiding, not even close to where she is now. As they advance, she slides under another car, grabbing one guy’s ankle and pulling him under the car, knocking him out with a punch. She grabs a tire iron off the floor as she rolls out and finds another car. The shooting stops, and they approach, trying to see if they’ve hit her, and she kicks the accelerator in the car next to her, sending the hood on a collision course with the next guy. She rolls away before the car has even stopped moving. She scoops up tools that have been left on the floor, tossing them around to disorient the Russians. The remaining two are terrified, aiming their guns wildly, but not shooting because they have no idea where she is. She sends the tire iron flying, hitting one in the head. And only one left, the one who smells like Claire’s blood.

Claire is trying to crawl under the car she’d been cowering against, but the last Russian grabs her and hauls her to her feet.

“Let her go,” Mattie whispers in the shadows.

“I’m walking out of here,” the guy says, his heart jackrabbiting in his chest.

“No, you aren’t.”

“I’m not playing with you, bitch. I’m walking out of here. I’ll blow her brains out!”

Claire screams as he tightens his grip on her.

“Put the gun down,” Mattie says softly, “or I promise you, you’ll never hold anything in that hand again.”

He swears and starts to turn the gun on Claire, and Mattie lets the devil out, twisting and striking anything she can lay her hands on. He falls to his knees, and Mattie twists his arm up behind him, her knee in his back.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” she whispers in his ear. “Being in pain, being afraid?” The guy roars in pain, then is cut off by the deep, wet thwack of a baseball bat hitting his face.

He drops to the ground, and Claire stands there for a moment, the bat in her hands, a woman on fire.

Then the bat drops, and she starts sobbing. Mattie goes to her and puts her arms around her, lowering Claire’s head to her shoulder.

“It’s OK,” she says, because what else can she say? “I have you.”

She holds Claire for a long moment, letting her cry, and she feels the devil curl up, satisfied.

“Come on,” she says quietly, once Claire has at least stopped sobbing. She leads Claire out by the fire exit, into the alley, and through Hell’s Kitchen’s network of shadows and darkness. When they reach her building she shows Claire the front door.

“6A,” she says. “I’ll be there.”

She climbs the fire escape up the back wall, and rushes down the stairs. Foggy isn’t in the apartment, but she can hear him helping Claire up the stairs. She pulls off the mask and goes to grab the first aid kit. She’s just emerging from the bathroom when Foggy pushes the door open, bringing Claire in.

“Just over here,” he says, sitting her down by the kitchen table. He sighs as she sits down, and takes the kit from Mattie. “You OK?” he says quietly.

“I’m fine, just take care of Claire,” she says, going to the kitchen. She pulls out two glasses and fills them with water, putting one on the table next to Claire, and drinking the other herself.

“This isn’t going to feel great,” Foggy says as he swabs at Claire’s forehead with an alcohol wipe. Claire winces.

“You do this a lot?” Claire says to Foggy, and he chuckles.

“Not as much, after she ran into you.”

“How’d you get roped into this? You pull her out of a dumpster too?”

“There was a dumpster?” Foggy says, turning to Mattie. She shrugs.

“You didn’t want to know,” Mattie says, pulling an icepack out of the freezer and handing it to Claire.

He sighs. “Yeah, guess so.” He rummages through the kit. “No, I’m just the idiot who asked her to marry me,” he says to Claire. He presses a butterfly strip to the cut on Claire’s forehead.

“Marry…?” Claire presses the icepack to her back. “Didn’t know you were the type, Shelly.”

“Matilda,” Mattie says. “My name is Matilda.”

“And Foggy,” Foggy says. “I don’t think I can do much more, so I’ll go set up the sofa bed.”

Mattie gently puts her hand on the icepack Claire is holding to her back, so Claire can relax her arm.

“Claire, I -“ she starts, then she crouches down next to Claire. “I - I’m sorry for getting you into this. I…I never thought that I’d be putting anyone else at risk.”

“It was my choice,” Claire says dismissively. “You didn’t ask me to pull you from that dumpster.”

“No, you did it because you’re a good person, and you almost got killed. Because of me.”

“Tell me it was worth it,” Claire says, and Mattie can only marvel at the strength in her voice. “Tell me that you’ve got a plan. An end game.”

“Claire…”

Foggy’s heart is beating hard, across the room.

“Anything?” Claire says.

“I’m just trying to make my city a better place, that’s all.”

Claire winces, and reaches back to readjust the icepack.

“I think maybe it’s a little more complicated than that now,” she says.

“Nothing’s changing out there,” Mattie admits, to both Foggy and Claire. “No matter what I do, I’m just…I’m making things worse.”

“Tell that to the boy you saved from the Russians. Or all the other people you’ve helped.”

“And what about the people I’ve gotten hurt? What do I…What do I tell them?”

Claire reaches back and takes the icepack out of Mattie’s hand. She takes Mattie’s hand and puts it on her chest.

“Feel my heart. What is it telling you?”

“That you’re scared,” Mattie says, pulling her hand away.

“Because I am. More than I’ve ever been in my life. And I am not alone. But you can do something about it…for all of us, Shel- Matilda.”

“She’s right,” Foggy says.

“You were the one who wanted me to stop,” Mattie says.

“Yeah, but…people who would do this…” He waves a hand at Mattie and Claire. “They’re not going to stop, are they? If you disappeared tonight, it wouldn’t stop them. They’d just get more powerful, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“So we have to do everything we can to make sure they don’t. That they can’t do anything like this ever again.”

His heart is beating a steady rhythm. Mattie nods.

For a long moment, she and Claire sit in silence while Foggy makes up the sofa bed. Claire curls up, dressed in Mattie’s t-shirt, and she’s asleep by the time Mattie finishes her shower. She quietly slides the bedroom door shut and climbs into bed next to Foggy. He reaches out to her, his hand on her face.

“I want to know,” he whispers. “No more…avoiding. I want to help you take these bastards down.”

“OK,” she whispers. She takes his hand and laces their fingers together. “Let’s do this together.”

He leans in and kisses her, soft and gentle. She pulls him to her, loving the feel of him, loving the feeling of being _together_. He shifts so that he’s on top of her, and whispers in her ear to ask whether Claire is asleep or not.

“Don’t worry, she’s out,” she whispers back. 

“OK, we should still be quiet.”

He makes love to her, slowly, carefully, and very, very quietly, and she loses herself in the feeling of him inside her, surrounding her. She falls asleep to his heartbeat under her ear, his hand stroking her hair, and his skin against hers, better than any silk in the world.


	5. All In

Claire is moving around the living room when Foggy wakes up. Mattie is already awake, too, giving Claire her bathrobe and an extra towel for a shower, so Foggy goes to work in the kitchen after he sends Karen a quick text to tell her they’ll be late.

“It’s OK if Claire stays her for a while, isn’t it?” Mattie says as he opens the fridge.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he says. “After what she’s been through…of course.” He pulls out the carton of eggs, not bothering to ask, since they usually have eggs in the morning because Mattie eats more protein than should be humanly possible. “And I meant what I said last night. I want in. On all of it.”

“Good.” She reaches out and brushes her hand down his arm. “I want you to be.” 

“Yeah. Good. OK, so we’ve got the man at the top…” Foggy says as he beats the eggs together. 

“Fisk,” Mattie says, reaching into the fridge.

“And the Russians are working for him.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Mattie sniffs a package of bacon suspiciously, but seems satisfied that it’s edible.

“And the Russians…”

“Run Veles Taxi. They were the ones who had Prohaszka killed, because they wanted to take over Kitchen Cab.”

“And Fisk runs Confed Global, so _he_ paid for Healy’s attorney?” Foggy pulls out two pans and puts them on the stovetop.

“I’m not sure if he _runs_ it, because it might not actually be a real company.”

“Right, it might just be him. Do we still have any chives?”

“I threw them out a few days go. But, yeah. Pastukh said he was involved with Union Allied, too.”

“Seriously?” That’s two of the women in Foggy’s life that Fisk has tried to have killed (three, if you count Claire). The bastard is going _down_.

“That’s probably why they tapped us to represent Healy.” Mattie drops the first slices of bacon into the hot pan while Foggy pours the eggs into the second one.

“So, we have Union Allied embezzling money, we have the Russians…doing what, exactly?” 

“Human trafficking and drugs, as far as I can tell. At least, those seem to be their major sources of revenue.”

“And all of the money is just going into Fisk’s pocket?”

Mattie pauses, a fork in her hand.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Just…if we knew what he was planning, we might be able to get ahead of him.”

“Yeah, I know. But I didn’t even know he _existed_ until a few days ago.” She pokes the bacon viciously, and Foggy strokes her shoulder.

“We’ll keep putting the pieces together.” He leans over and kisses her. “Hey, we could put together a conspiracy wall!”

“A what?”

“You know, like in the movies, where you have all the pictures taped to the wall, and you connect them with red string…?”

Mattie laughs. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

The shower turns off, and Claire emerges, moving gingerly.

“You two cook for every girl you bring home?” she says, sitting down at the table.

“Nah, just the ones who keep me alive,” Mattie says. Foggy stirs the eggs; they’re almost done.

“Do you have jobs or something to get to? Or are you, like, the lady version of Tony Stark?”

Mattie chuckles. “No, we have jobs.”

“Damn, I thought I’d lucked out.”

Foggy starts plating up the eggs. Mattie pulls the bacon out of the pan.

“What do you do?” Claire says.

“Lawyers,” Foggy says. “We have our own practice, and I’ve texted our office manager to let her know we’ll be late this morning.”

Mattie starts putting the plates down on the table.

“Lawyer by day, vigilante by night,” Claire says, sounding amused. “The hell does that work?”

Mattie grins. “Yeah, I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

Mattie and Foggy sit, just as Claire winces and whispers “Oh, shit.” Mattie jumps up and grabs the first aid kit from where they left it last night.

“You just opened one of the cuts on your back,” she says, passing Foggy the kit.

“How do you know that?” says Claire, sliding the back of the bathrobe off her shoulder. Foggy can see where the cut has opened.

“I can taste copper in the air,” Mattie says.

“Here,” Foggy says, putting another butterfly strip over the cut. “That should do it.”

“Thanks,” Claire says. She chuckles. “Copper in the air.”

“Uh, Mattie, do you want to check to see if there’s anything else we missed last night?” Foggy says, waving a hand in Claire’s direction. He’d really only dealt with the superficial wounds last night.

“Yeah, sure.” Mattie shifts her chair over to Claire. “May I?”

Claire shakes her head in disbelief. “Knock yourself out, Houdini,” she says.

Mattie puts her hand on Claire’s bare shoulder, resting it there for a few seconds, before placing her other lower on Claire’s back.

“The swelling’s down,” she says, sounding relieved. “Rib fracture’s only a hairline. I couldn’t tell before.”

“You have X-ray fingers, now?” says Claire as she slips the bathrobe back up her shoulder. Foggy wonders how much Mattie told her about her super-senses.

“I can hear your bones shift when you breathe. No grinding means nothing’s broken,” Mattie says matter-of-factly.

“What does a hairline fracture sound like?”

Mattie pauses, maybe listening to the fracture in Claire’s rib.

“An old ship,” she says. The corner of her mouth turns up, and she shifts her chair back to her plate. They start eating.

“How do you…” Claire starts. “I mean, I know that you’re blind, but you…see so much. How?”

“I know this one!” Foggy says. “World on fire.”

“Yeah, you kinda have to work up to that, Foggy,” Mattie says with a grin.

“What does he mean?”

“Um…’world on fire’ is the way I explained it to Foggy. It’s - it’s a metaphor, really, to give you an idea of the way that I…perceive the world. Like, if Foggy’s going to toss one of those grapes at me…” She gestures at the fruit bowl in the middle of the table, and Foggy obediently pulls off a grape and tosses it at her. She catches it easily. “I know where it is because I can sense the disturbance in the air. I can smell it. I can hear it leaving Foggy’s hand, I can hear the way sound echoes off it, I can sense its direction of movement. It helps if you think of it as more than just five senses. But it’s not just this,” she holds up the grape. “It’s the entire world. Micro-changes in air density, vibrations, blankets of temperature variations, smells, all of the fragments form a sort of…impressionistic painting. Where everything’s surrounded in flames.”

Claire exhales slowly. “If all I saw was fire, I’d probably want to hit people, too.”

“I just wish I knew I was hitting the right ones,” Mattie says darkly, poking at her eggs.

“Uh…this is probably a good time to mention…” says Foggy. “We were saying that you should stay here for a few days. At least until we can figure something out to make sure that you’ll be safe.”

Claire nods, and takes a bite of eggs.

“I can stop by your friend’s apartment,” Mattie says. “Pick up any clothes you left there.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“And we’ll figure this out.”

They eat in silence for a moment.

“Why don’t you go to the police?” says Claire. “With all that you have on the Russians?”

“I wear a mask and beat on people,” Mattie says. “Doesn’t exactly mesh with police policy.”

“Not to mention that we know about a couple of dirty cops on Fisk’s payroll,” Foggy says. “This goes to the wrong cop, everything disappears into a nice black hole.”

“With us along with it.”

“So you just try to take on the entire Russian mob by yourself?”

“Not the mob. Just one man.”

“Fisk?”

“Cut off the head of the snake, the body dies.”

“How do you know he’s the head of the snake if you can’t find anything on him?”

“Everything leads back to him. But all the evidence we have is circumstantial. No-one’s actually talking.”

“Maybe you’re beating on the wrong people,” says Claire, her brow furrowing. “I heard a name, when they were…the prick with the baseball bat reacted when he heard it. Like a dog when you yank his leash.”

“What was the name?”

“Vladimir,” Claire spits.

“Ranskahov?”

Claire shakes her head. “They didn’t say.”

Mattie leans back in her chair. “Vladimir and Anatoly Ranskahov run the Russians. I’ve run into one of them…I think it was Anatoly, but I’m not sure.”

“What happened?”

“He got away,” Mattie says, standing up and taking her empty plate to the sink.

“Here, I’ll take that,” Foggy says, clearing the rest of the dirty dishes. Mattie washes them quickly. “OK, we gotta get going, but we’re going to leave my laptop here, feel free to watch Netflix, and one of us will be by during lunch to check on you.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about me,” Claire says softly.

Just outside the office, Mattie’s eyebrows furrow.

“What?” Foggy says.

“I think Karen has a surprise for us,” she says.

“Huh?” Foggy opens the door, and is greeted by the sight of office equipment. Covered in dust, and possibly older than anyone in the room, but equipment none the less. Karen has a set of phones sitting on her desk and a manual that she’s flipping frantically through.

“Promise you won’t get mad!” she says as they enter.

“About what?” says Mattie, because, _right, we’re back to the normal-blind-girl act._

“Karen bought…office equipment. From the early 90s,” Foggy says.

“Oh, it’s not that old,” Karen says. “I think.”

“Uh, there’s a printer? And a copier? And Karen has some phones on her desk…” Foggy says to Mattie.

“They’re conference phones. And - and there’s a fax machine.”

“A _fax_ machine?” Mattie says, grinning at Foggy.

“Apparently, people do actually use them,” Foggy says. He turns back to Karen. “Uh, where did this all…”

“Oh, there was an auction, and, you know, we needed stuff, so, I, um…charged it to the office. But don’t freak out, OK?” she says quickly. “I’ll pay for it, out of the settlement, I can definitely cover it.”

Mattie chuckles. “Sounds like _you’re_ paying to be here, rather than the other way around.”

“Well, you _do_ pay me.”

“Out of the money you’re paying _us_ ,” says Foggy.

“So it’s basically one incestuous pool of capital?” says Mattie. Foggy laughs, and Mattie heads into her office, giving Foggy a very good view of her ass as she walks away.

“So you’re not mad?” Karen says, distracting Foggy from his lecherous ( _Is it really lecherous when I’m going to marry her?_ ) gaze.

“I ever tell you my mom wanted me to be a butcher?” Foggy says.

“No!” calls Mattie. “You are _not_ inflicting the butcher story on Karen!”

Ed calls Mattie just before lunch, interrupting Karen’s battle with the conference phones. Foggy has managed to get the printer to work, so Mattie tells Ed that they’ll have his paperwork and invoice ready in the afternoon.

“We don’t have invoices on file,” Foggy says.

“Can’t we just put something together?” Mattie says. Foggy pauses.

“Kaa-ren!” he calls. Karen pokes her head in. “Do you think you could throw together an invoice? Make it look like it’s on letterhead?”

“Do we have letterhead?”

“I have the file from when we got the business cards printed up?”

Karen wrinkles her nose as she considers it. “Should work. But we don’t have anything to print on.”

“I’ll get some paper - I have to run some errands while I’m on lunch anyway,” Mattie says.

By the time Mattie gets back from lunch (which Foggy knows she actually spent delivering Claire’s clothes to her and picking up printer paper), Karen has the invoice drawn up. Foggy pulls Mattie into his office and makes her eat half the sandwich he’d grabbed for himself.

Ed shows up mid-afternoon, looking shaky and sweaty, but at least sober. He seems a little fuzzy on the details of what happened, but grateful to not be in jail, and he signs the paperwork and his check without a fuss and tells them that he’ll recommend them to anyone who needs legal help. 

“You don’t happen to do divorce work, do you?” he says in a defeated tone as he hands over the check.

“It’s…not our specialty…” says Foggy evasively.

“But we’d be happy to give you any assistance you need,” finishes Mattie, flashing Ed that smile that has charmed oh-so-many people out of their pants. It doesn’t seem to have much effect on Ed, who just nods glumly.

“Don’t know any other lawyers,” he says. “Wouldn’t trust any, either. But you two…you’re OK.”

_Ringing endorsement. We’ll put it on the website._

“If you’d like us to handle your divorce case, we can certainly draw up the paperwork,” Mattie says.

“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do that,” Ed says.

So they now have _two_ whole clients, which is enough cause for celebration that Foggy decides he can splurge. He sends Mattie to pick up dinner (curry, because why not live a little?), and takes the subway to one of the sporting goods stores they found while putting together Mattie’s suit.

At home, they sit down to eat together, and Claire smiles when they tell her they had a good day at work, and Foggy launches into the epic tale of his battle against the printer, and it would be easy to think that she’s just a friend, just a friend who’s staying on their couch because they enjoy her company, that there isn’t a world outside that would happily see them all dead.

When Mattie slips into the bedroom to change into the suit after dinner, Foggy follows her, and holds out the plastic bag he’d thrown onto the bed.

“Got something. For you.”

“And it’s not even my birthday,” she says suspiciously. She pulls out the gauntlets and kneepads that he’d bought (in black, of course), and sucks in a breath as she runs her hands over them. “Foggy…”

“It’s not exactly the Iron Man suit, but…I kinda want to keep you in one piece,” he says, sitting down on the bed.

She smiles, and if it’s a little watery, he won’t mention it. She carefully puts down the gauntlets and straddles his lap, kissing him with both arms draped over his shoulders.

“Thank you,” she whispers, leaning her forehead against his.

“Just make sure you come home, OK?”

She nods, and kisses him again before she climbs off him. She pulls on the gauntlets and kneepads, and disappears up the stairs into the night, telling Claire she’s going to try to track down Vladimir. Foggy opens two bottles of beer and offers one to Claire.

“So what’d you get up to?” he says, sitting down in one of the armchairs. Claire stretches out on the sofa bed.

“Netflix, mostly. Figured I could catch up on my binge-watching.”

“Yeah, what’re you watching?”

“ _Orange is the New Black_. I haven’t had time to watch the new season.”

“How is it?”

Claire shrugs. “Not as good as the first two. Seems kind of meandering right now.” Silence falls as they drink their beers. “You do this a lot, don’t you?”

“Hmm?”

“Waiting here, for her.”

Foggy studies his beer. “Yeah.”

“How do you handle it?”

Foggy holds up his bottle. “I drink. And I pray.” _Even though I’m not sure what I believe in._

“She know about that?”

“She knows about the drinking.”

Claire nods, as if she understands. Maybe she does.

“You know,” she says, “I was worried about her. That she was doing this all on her own. That she thought she had nothing to lose.” She looks him in the eye. “I’m glad I was wrong about that.”

Foggy just drinks his beer. There’s not much he can say to that.

“You…want to put something on?” Claire offers.

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

They wind up watching _Sense8_ , since neither of them have seen it, and it seems fantastical enough to take their minds off of the real world.

“Is it really that far-fetched, though?” Foggy says as he brings Claire another beer during the third episode’s opening credits. “I mean, there are weirder things in the world right now, right?”

“You think psychic connections are possible?”

“Well, my fiancee was blinded by chemicals that gave her super-senses. Not to mention we all lived through an alien invasion. I’m just saying, I’m not ruling the possibility out.”

Claire shrugs amiably, but then stabs at the space bar on the laptop before her head whips around to the stairs, where Mattie is standing, the mask in her hand.

“How’d it go?” Foggy says.

Mattie shakes her head. “Cops showed up before I could get anything. I’ll have to try again tomorrow.” She seems to be moving easily, so Foggy guesses she isn’t hurt. He watches her go to the kitchen and drain a glass of water. He knows that face.

“Everything OK?” he says, following her.

She hesitates, and he can see “Yeah, I’m fine” on her lips, before she deflates and shakes her head.

“They killed someone when they came after me. One of their couriers, I think. They shot at me, and he took one of the bullets in the head.” She puts down the glass, and takes a shaky breath. “I heard his heart stop,” she says, so quietly that he’s sure she meant it only for him. He puts his arms around her.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Kind of was.”

He holds her for a long minute, then glances over to Claire, who has her lips pressed together in a frown. Their gazes meet, and Claire sighs.

“Let me have a look at you,” she says. Foggy hands Mattie over, and Claire runs her hands through Mattie’s hair, then pats her down, checking for blood, then checks Mattie’s ribs (no further damage) before sending her to take a shower. She takes a drink of beer, looking coolly at Foggy. “It’s only going to get worse, you know,” she says.

“I know,” he says.

Mattie has nightmares all night. Foggy wakes up to find her shaking, her knees pulled up to her chest. He pulls her against him, hoping to hell that his heartbeat can calm her down.

“He was singing,” she whispers. “Before I…I can hear - I can’t get it out of my head.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispers again.

“He’d be alive if it wasn’t for me.”

“You didn’t shoot him.” He knows, legally speaking, this could go either way, but he has to convince Mattie that she’s not the guilty one.

But she just burrows against his chest, still shaking.

In the morning, they leave Claire to her Netflix (“Don’t you dare watch _Sense8_ without me.”), and walk to the office. Mattie looks pale and tired, but she’s also quiet, which usually means she’s thinking something over.

“You OK?” Foggy says when they’re halfway there.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I’m fine, just thinking about something that happened last night.”

“Hey, I told you -“

“No, not that.” Her expression darkens for a moment, before she shakes it off. “No, one of the Russians, he was…afraid of me.”

“That’s…good, isn’t it?”

“He begged me not to take his head.”

Foggy pauses.

“Like, literally?” he says.

“I think so. He said that I cut off Vladimir’s brother’s head.”

“Oh.” He looks at her, trying to figure out how to delicately phrase this, then gives up. “You didn’t, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Right, just checking. So, what does this mean?”

“Someone’s trying to frame me? And that Anatoly Ranskahov is probably dead.”

“Who would try to frame you?”

She sighs. “Fisk?”

“I thought the Russians worked for him.”

“Have you noticed how people who work for him tend to wind up dead?”

Foggy thinks of the Union Allied case, and the trail of dead bodies that were left in its wake.

“Good point.” They’re at the door to the office building. “On the plus side, he seems to think you’re worth framing.”

“Yeah, always nice to be noticed.”

Mattie laughs as they climb the stairs.

“What?”

“No, you’ll see,” she says.

Foggy opens the door to see Karen scolding the fax machine.

“No!” she’s saying. “Oh, my God, you don’t make any sense!”

“Whoa, be nice to it,” Foggy says. “You know for when the machines take over.”

“I can’t get any of this crap I bought to work.”

“Except the phones,” Mattie says brightly.

“And the printer,” Foggy says.

“ _You_ got the printer to work,” Karen says in frustration. “But _this_ -“ she smacks the fax machine, which makes a grinding noise.

“Maybe they just don’t like you as much as they like us,” suggests Foggy.

“Ugh!” Karen groans.

There’s a knock on the door behind them, and a female voice.

“Excuse…Is this, um, Señor Foggy law?”

Foggy takes in Mattie’s arched eyebrows, then the small woman framed in the door, and smiles. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

The woman is named Elena Cardenas, and she got their card from Bess Mahoney (Foggy is _definitely_ going to gloat about that). She has a rent-controlled apartment, and her landlord, noted sleazebag Armand Tully, is trying to force her and her neighbors out to convert the building to condos. Mrs Cardenas’ English is only passable, so Karen translates most of it.

“Men came weeks ago, they said that they were workers…and they destroyed the apartments with a…I don’t know that last word.”

“Sledgehammers,” says Mattie. Karen looks askance at her.

“College,” Foggy supplies. “You ever have a client that wants to chat in Punjabi, I’m your man.”

“Um…” Karen says, looking embarrassed. “Do you want to do this?”

“No, you’re doing great. And I think she likes you.”

Mrs Cardenas is adamant that she won’t leave her apartment, even with a $10 000 offer from Tully (which is a pittance, really, for a Midtown apartment, bordering on insulting). Mattie takes over, and starts speaking rapidly in Spanish, and Foggy catches his own name, but not much else. Then Karen is leading Mrs Cardenas out, leaving Foggy confused in the conference room.

“I heard you say my name. Why’d you say my name?” he says.

“I told her you’re going to talk to Tully’s lawyer,” Mattie says, and she’s grinning, and there are times when Foggy really hates that she can be a complete and utter bitch.

“Tully’s lawyer? Do you know who reps him?” 

“Yeah, I know.”

“Landman and Zack! Landman and mother-freaking Zack, Mattie!”

“Ooh, sounds impressive,” says Karen. “Are they looking to hire?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be happy. We used to intern there,” says Mattie.

“Oh, right.”

“And they offered us a job,” Foggy continues, “a great job, which we turned down to go off and save the world. Now they hate us.” He looks at Mattie, and thinks that he _should_ regret it, but never will. “We’ll need to load for bear if we’re gonna take them on.”

“I’ll hit the precinct to check for complaints against Tully,” Mattie says, taking her cane from the corner where she stashes it.

“I can’t go to L and Z alone. They’re gonna shark attack me, Mattie. Look at me, I’m delicious.”

She grins, and steps in close to him. “Yeah, you are.” And that’s her hand on his ass.

“This is harassment. I’m telling HR.”

“HR doesn’t care.” She steps back, looking pleased with herself. “You can take Karen.”

Foggy looks at Karen, who has been their legal assistant for a grand total of…how many weeks?

“I mean, yeah, if she wants to,” he says.

“Oh…sure,” Karen says. “Never seen sharks feed up close before.”

“Try not to splash too much,” Mattie says. “It attracts them.” She swats at Foggy’s ass as she makes her way out the door.

“I’m not a piece of meat, Murdock!” He turns back to see Karen giggling. “You both are so funny,” he grumbles.

Landman & Zack hasn’t changed in the few months since Foggy and Mattie quit, and Foggy can feel the old anxiety rising as he steps through the revolving door. It had been a miserable internship, the kind of misery that you don’t realize how bad it’s gotten until you’re out. He’s tempted to keep his back to the wall to make sure nobody stabs it.

But instead, Karen has his back, joking about clones and robot babies, before he hears, “Foggy Bear!” from across the lobby.

_This is a nightmare, right? I’m going to wake up, and Mattie’s going to laugh at me for dreaming about my ex._

It’s not a nightmare, it’s really Marci Stahl standing in front of him, asking him where his blushing bride is.

“Or did you break it off with her already?”

“Date’s set for February, thanks for asking.”

“And here I was waiting for my save the date.”

And because this can’t get any worse, Marci’s the one who’s representing Tully (“Just part of the team.”). She tries to feed them the blatant lies about the workmen (and Foggy doesn’t need Mattie’s hearing to know they’re lies), and Foggy loses it.

“Marci, convincing my client to agree to your terms? That’s your job. And I’m not going to do it for you. See, you think there are only two options. These tenants take the payout and leave, or leave without taking it. But given how long they’ve put up with Tully’s bullshit, I think you’re actually afraid that Mrs _Cardenas_ and her neighbors will find a way to eke by. And short of physically and very illegally forcing tenants from their rent-controlled homes…Armand Tully loses his condos. Your firm loses Tully. And that’s very bad for business. You want me any my client to think that you’re doing us a favor, that we have no leverage, when really, we have all of it. So you’re gonna see us in court, where I will absolutely dismantle you, from the top of your salon blowout to the bottom of your overpriced pumps.”

He walks away, Karen trailing behind him.

“You would’ve killed it here, Foggy Bear,” Marci calls, and he _knows_ that look in her eye. He used to see it all the time when they were together. “You never should have left.”

“You never should have signed on, Marce. You were really something, back in the day. When you had a soul.”

He storms toward the revolving door. _Don’t ask, Karen, please don’t ask._

“Foggy Bear?” Karen asks. _Dammit._

“We used to date.”

“You dated that?”

“Yep, let’s step a little faster.”

He has the feeling that Karen has a slightly skewed image of the people he and Mattie used to date.

They stop for lunch, and they’re only just getting back to the office when his phone rings, showing Mattie’s picture.

“Hey,” he says as he picks up, “you’re not going to believe who L&Z have representing Tully -“

“Foggy, Hoffman just shot one of the Russians at the precinct,” Mattie interrupts.

“What? Hold on a sec.” He goes into his office and closes the door. “What happened?”

“One of the Russians I got last night, he got picked up when the cops showed up, Blake and Hoffman were interrogating him, and he tried to turn state’s on Fisk. Hoffman shot him when he said the name.”

“Jesus. Where are you?”

“On my way home. I’m going after Blake once IAB is through with him.”

Foggy sighs. “You think he knows how to find Vladimir?”

“I think he’s the best lead I’ve got. Hey, Claire.” Foggy can hear the door closing in the background.

“OK. Be careful.”

“Always am.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Yeah…probably. What were you saying about Tully?”

“What? Oh, Marci’s on Tully’s legal team. She’s the one I met with at L&Z.”

“Seriously?” He can hear a laugh in her voice. “Can’t say I’m _surprised_ that she’d wind up there…”

“She wasn’t that bad.”

“Clearly, she was. So what happened?”

“Oh, the usual bullshit, trying to intimidate us.” He sighs. “They’re going to try to tear us apart.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got the law on our side.”

“Tully’s going to make the place uninhabitable.”

“So we make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Foggy nods. “I just nodded.” Then he laughs. “It’s actually kind of weird, having to say that, now.”

“Am I allowed to admit that I kind of miss it?”

Foggy thinks of the time _before_ , when he hadn’t known about Mattie’s abilities, when she hadn’t been covered in cuts and bruises. _If I could go back, would I?_

“Sure.”

“I should go,” she says. “Love you.”

“Love you.”

The sun is setting as Foggy and Karen head over to Mrs Cardenas’ apartment at 44th and 11th. The building is, objectively speaking, terrible, with peeling paint and the smell of mold. Marci, apparently, wasn’t lying about the state of it. Mrs Cardenas’ apartment isn’t much better, with no power and giant holes knocked in the walls. Foggy doesn’t want to think about the possibility of asbestos.

_So we make sure that doesn’t happen._ Mattie had been talking about stopping Tully, but as Foggy looks around, he knows that this isn’t about _stopping_ Tully, it’s about fixing what he’s done.

“Señor Tully…fix?” Mrs Cardenas says hopefully.

“No,” Foggy says. “Not yet. But Karen and I, we’re going to do what we can.”

“We are?” says Karen.

Mrs Cardenas says something in Spanish.

“Why not?” says Foggy, taking off his jacket. “My dad's owned a hardware store for twelve forevers, picked up a few things. At least get the ball rolling.” He starts rolling up his sleeves.

“And your cousin’s a drywall guy, right?”

“That he is. And Mattie and I fished an electrician out of the drunk tank. Owes us a favor.” He looks around trying to decide what to tackle first. “We’re gonna talk to your neighbors, too, OK, Mrs Cardenas? We’re gonna take care of you.”

He remembers the state of his parents’ apartment after the Incident. “Water and power,” his mom had said, those were the priorities. “Then internet.” He’d thought she’d been joking, but she’d argued that communication was actually more important than repairing the windows.

He has Karen call Ed to come in tomorrow, then goes to work on the plumbing in the kitchen. It takes him an hour to get the cold water working (and wouldn’t his dad be embarrassed by that?), but it’s a start. When he crawls out from under the sink, Mrs Cardenas is holding a pot of something that smells delicious.

“You, Señor Foggy, you…” she says, beaming, “you stay, we eat.”

“No, Mrs Cardenas -“

“You stay. There is no 'no happen,' OK?” She says something else in Spanish to Karen, and Foggy decides that arguing with the tiny Latina lady would be a bad idea.

“You want to eat?” he asks Karen.

“Be rude not to,” she says, smiling.

They sit down where Mrs Cardenas has put the pot.

“ _Mi madre_ make this, all the time in Guatemala. Now I make _para ustedes, como gracias_.”

“Mrs Cardenas, where did you make this?” says Karen. “You don’t have any gas.”

“I cook in _apartmento_ downstairs. _Aquí_ , we take care for another.” She puts down plates and says something in Spanish that makes Karen start.

“Oh, no!” Karen stammers, then struggles to get a sentence together in Spanish, in which Foggy hears both his and Mattie’s names. He smiles, trying to be helpful. Mrs Cardenas looks embarrassed, and seems to apologize to Karen. “She, um, she thought that you and I were…” Karen gestures vaguely between them.

“What, together?”

“Um, yeah,” she says. “But I told her that you and _Mattie_ are engaged.” Mrs Cardenas smiles and says something in Spanish. “She says congratulations, and Mattie is very pretty.”

“Yes, yes she is,” says Foggy, because he’s not quite sure what happened to this conversation, but that seems safe enough.

Karen says something, pulling a chair around the table, and Mrs Cardenas sits, cheerfully serving them the stew.

As they eat, Foggy asks Mrs Cardenas about herself. She talks (via Karen) about her life in Guatemala City, about her daughter, who immigrated to the States to be a hairdresser, about losing her husband five years ago, and how her daughter sponsored her immigration after his death. She sadly mentions losing her daughter in a car crash last year.

“They lived here together,” says Karen, and Foggy suddenly understands why Mrs Cardenas is so attached to the place.

“We’re not going to let anyone take it away from you,” Foggy says. Mrs Cardenas pats his arm, and calls him what he assumes is Spanish for “nice boy.” Then she asks Karen something in Spanish.

“Oh, um, she wants to know how we started working together,” Karen says.

“Oh.” Foggy looks at Karen. “Uh, how much…”

Karen starts answering in broken Spanish, giving a much shorter version than Foggy thinks is the truth.

“What did you say?” he says when she finishes.

“I said I was having legal trouble at my old job, and you and Mattie helped me out.”

“OK.” He smiles at Mrs Cardenas, who smiles back.

“They…good lawyers?” she says with a wily look at Karen.

“Very good,” Karen says.

_Best damn avocados._

And Foggy is smiling at his private joke when the world explodes.


	6. Safe

Foggy’s not sure how much time passes between the explosion and when he can finally roll over. There’s a pain in his side that he ignores, because Karen is coughing, and Mrs Cardenas is saying something in pain-laced Spanish.

“Karen, you OK?” he gasps out.

“Yeah…”

Foggy manages to get to his knees to look around. Mrs Cardenas is bleeding from her forehead and cradling her arm against herself. Karen looks in better shape, already talking to Mrs Cardenas.

“We have to stop the bleeding,” she says to Foggy in English. She’s reaching for the dishtowel that had been on the table, but is now lying in a pile of rubble, when a second explosion shakes the building. “What is happening?!” she moans, finally getting the dishtowel and pressing it against Mrs Cardenas’ forehead.

“Stay with her,” Foggy says, getting up.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait. Where are you going?”

“See if anyone else needs help. I’ll be right back.”

He hears Karen calling his name as he rushes out the door, but when he glances back, she just looks scared, not in danger.

_We should get out of here._

Or should they? What if there’s another explosion, and they’re caught in it when they’re out on the street? What if someone’s shooting, and they’re caught in the crossfire? What if this is another alien invasion? 

_Where’s Mattie?_

He pulls out his phone as he rushes down the hall, pressing the call button as he knocks on doors.

“This is Mattie Murdock. Leave a message,” comes her voice over the phone.

“Mattie, call me when you get in, OK? I need to know you’re safe.”

The first few apartments have families with relatively minor injuries, but as soon as Foggy sees the third fire, he knows they have to evacuate. All those candles, knocked over by the blast, and most apartments with no water to douse them. Some of them have fire extinguishers, and one mother helpfully gives him hers after she’s finished putting out the fires in her own apartment. He calls Karen and tells her to take Mrs Cardenas out to the street while he works his way to the next floor, holding his tie over his mouth and nose, and wielding the fire extinguisher as best he can. It runs out, and he tosses it aside, and does his best to guide any stragglers out of the building. Outside, the air is cool and fresh (it’s not, he knows, but it feels like it), and Karen is sitting on the curb with Mrs Cardenas. He can hear sirens all around, but there don’t seem to be any emergency services on this particular block.

“Foggy!”

“I think that’s everyone,” he pants, coughing a little. “How’s Mrs C?”

“She’s bleeding pretty bad, and I think her arm’s broken.”

“OK, we should get her to the hospital. Metro General’s pretty close, we can walk there.”

Karen nods, her mouth tight, then turns to Mrs Cardenas to explain what they’ve decided in Spanish. Mrs Cardenas acquiesces, and they help her up, holding her between them as they walk as fast as they can. Mrs Cardenas asks Karen something in Spanish, and Karen shakes her head.

“I don’t know,” Karen says. “I don’t know.”

The Metro General ER is packed, and starting to overflow when they get through the doors. Foggy looks around for a nurse, or _someone_ , and can’t see anyone who can help.

“We need help!” he calls. “I got an elderly woman over here, and she’s bleeding bad!”

“Foggy!”

Foggy turns around, and sees Claire running towards him.

“Claire? What are you doing here?”

“My job,” snaps Claire, taking charge of Mrs Cardenas. “Where’s she hurt?”

“Are you a nurse?” Karen asks.

“Yeah.”

“She’s a friend of Mattie’s,” Foggy says.

“Pretty bad laceration,” Claire says, brushing her fingertips along Mrs Cardenas’ hairline. She looks down at Mrs Cardenas’ arm, and gently touches it, making Mrs Cardenas moan in pain. “And a bad break.” Mrs Cardenas says something in Spanish, and Claire responds. “What’s her name?” she says in English.

“Mrs Cardenas. Elena.”

Claire nods, and addresses Mrs Cardenas by name, guiding her away from Foggy and Karen.

“You guys stay here,” she tosses over her shoulder as she takes Mrs Cardenas through the double doors. Mrs Cardenas gives him a frightened look as Claire leads her away.

“We’ll wait here for you, Mrs C!” Foggy calls. “Uh… _qui esperaro_ …”

“She’s gonna….she’s gonna be fine,” stammers Karen.

“I’m just glad we were with her.”

“Yeah.”

Foggy glances over to the TV on the wall, which shows burning buildings.

_This is just like the Incident._

Except Mattie’s not here with him.

“Jesus, look at this,” he says. “It’s like a war zone out there.”

“Yeah…” Karen breathes. “Wait, where’s Mattie? Should we call her?”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, we should…” He reaches for his phone.

“Foggy, you’re bleeding.”

“Huh?” Karen’s pointing at his side, and he opens his jacket to see blood on his shirt, all down his left side. “Oh, that explains it.” As soon as he sees it, the pain he’s been ignoring roars into his consciousness, and he realizes that it hurts to breathe.

“Explains what?”

“The stabbing pain in my side.”

“Foggy!” Karen grabs his right arm and turns him around to sit in an empty chair. “Sit. Here.” She drops her purse at Foggy’s feet. “Just stay here. I’m gonna go and try to find somebody, OK?”

“I’ll just, uh…yeah…” Foggy manages to gasp out as Karen frantically starts down the hall.

It doesn’t take long for Karen to find someone, since they’re worried that he might be bleeding internally (and insist that he stay the night, just in case). Karen is told to wait outside, and then he’s stripped out of his clothes and put into a hospital gown, and the nurse pulls a _gigantic_ shard of glass out of his side. She’s just starting to stitch the wound when Claire appears at the curtain.

“I’ll take over,” she says, snapping on gloves. The other nurse shrugs and bustles away.

“I heard from her,” Claire says without preamble as she starts on his stitches. “She’s OK for now.”

Foggy sighs in relief.

“Where is she?” 

“A warehouse. Don’t know where. She’s got Vladimir, he’s been shot.” Claire’s voice is steady, but there’s a tightness to her expression that Foggy thinks is anger.

“Jesus. Wait, how did you -“

“She’s got her burner.” Claire fixes a dressing over the wound, and lets the gown fall back over him. “But…I think she’s got her hands full, right now.”

“Yeah. Right. With the Russian mobster.”

Claire nods, frowning.

“When she went out tonight, before she left - I said some things…” Claire glances away. “It doesn’t matter,” she says with finality. “Guess I don’t need to crash on your couch any more.”

“Claire?”

“I’ll get your friend.”

And she’s gone. Karen rushes in a minute later.

“I’ve been trying Mattie’s phone, but I keep getting her voicemail,” she says, obviously frazzled. Foggy’s heart sinks, since he knows that Mattie’s phone is sitting on her bedside table, where she always leaves it when she goes out, next to her ring and her glasses.

“Hey, I’m sure she’s fine, she’s probably just stuck somewhere without any signal.”

“Right. Right.”

“Just…sit, OK? Turn up the TV, I wanna know what’s going on.” Hopefully, the news will distract Karen from his sort-of-missing fiancee. It doesn’t work. Karen keeps calling Mattie every ten minutes, getting shorter and shorter with him when he tries to reassure her that Mattie is probably fine. _Please let her be fine._

“How can you just…lie there and say that?!” she explodes at him the sixth time he tells her not to worry. “Your _fiancee_ is a blind woman missing in a war zone, seems like worrying is a pretty reasonable option.”

And Foggy can’t say, “because she’s currently holed up with an injured Russian mobster.” There’s nothing he can say to make this better, but he tries.

“You don’t know her like I do. Sometimes I even forget she can’t see, the way she zips around.”

“That doesn’t change anything! How are you acting like you…just don’t care?”

“I’m scared, OK? I’m scared shitless, but panicking is not going to keep her safe.”

Karen stares at him, her expression caught between frowning at him and softening.

“I’m going to go check downstairs,” she snaps, “make sure she hasn’t been brought in.”

“Thank you.”

He’s not quite sure how to interpret the look she throws him as she heads out the door, but with his luck, it’s not good. He sighs and throws his head back on the pillow. He’s itching to grab his phone off the table next to him and call Mattie’s burner, but _what if she’s got Vladimir talking, and I distract her? What if she’s hiding, and the ringtone gives her away? What if she’s fighting someone right now?_ The burner was supposed to be for her to call him for help, not for him to check up on her.

_Just make sure you come home, OK?_

So he paws away the tear that’s crawling down from his eye, and waits for Karen to come back, announcing that Mattie has not been brought in. Part of Foggy is disappointed, and the clenching pit in his stomach gets bigger. Karen throws herself into the chair next to Foggy’s bed, and winds up curling into a tight ball. Foggy wants to tell her to sleep, but he has the feeling that she won’t take it well. Instead, they watch the news. It’s repetitive, just cycling through what everyone knows by now, until, live on camera, four cops and a reporter are shot. Karen gasps, her hand covering her mouth, and she and Foggy exchange wide-eyed looks. Foggy can hear the reactions all through the hospital ward as the people who saw it happen tell the people who didn’t. And then -

“And authorities believe this woman is responsible for the bombings, possibly as part of an ongoing feud with the Russian mob.”

The footage is grainy, silent, but even if it were accompanied by a full-orchestra John Williams soundtrack, Foggy wouldn’t hear it over the pounding of blood in his ears. 

_She didn’t do this, who said she did this, don’t hurt her, don’t hurt her, don’t hurt her._

It’s all he can do not to scream at the screen, that anyone who touches her will have to answer to him, that those cops who are…OK, having their asses kicked by Mattie…will rue the day they laid a finger on her.

_That last part is probably true right now._

They roll the footage again, and Foggy realizes that he’s never seen her fight, not for real, and he never knew she was beautiful when she did.

“That’s her,” Karen is saying. “That’s the girl who saved my life.”

“This girl?”

“I don’t understand why she would do something like this. She just didn’t seem like…I don’t know, she just didn’t…”

“Hey, we don’t know all the facts yet,” Foggy says. “This could be a huge mistake, she could have nothing to do with this.”

“Then why are they -“

“Because…people are scared. And when they’re scared, they want someone to blame. And she’s the obvious one right now, but…who knows, right? I mean, we know we owe her one, so I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

Karen nods, her lips pressed together.

“Hey,” Foggy says. “Speaking of scared, do you mind checking on Mrs Cardenas? She’s probably wondering what happened to us.”

“Oh. Yeah, yeah, I’ll go do that.”

As soon as Karen is out the door, Foggy throws himself at his bedside table, grabbing his phone and making the call before he talks himself out of it.

_I’m sorry, Mattie, but I have to._

“It’s really not a good time,” comes Mattie’s voice. She sounds out of breath.

“On the news, they’re saying that you shot those people. The cops, that reporter.”

“Fo…?” She lets his name trail off.

“Who else?” _Oh. Right. Claire._

“Claire said you were hurt, you were at the hospital.”

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t do this. It was Fisk. It’s all Fisk.”

“Where are you?”

“Hang on.” He can still hear her ragged breathing over the phone. “I have to - I love you. I need you to know that.”

“What? No. No, we are not having that conversation. You promised me.”

“I love you. I’m sorry.”

She hangs up.

Foggy wishes he could throw the phone across the room. He wishes he could scream, so loud that she could hear him and know that _she has to come back to him._ Instead, all he can do is cover his mouth and choke back sobs.

He hears the sound of running feet, and Claire is standing in the door. Distantly, he registers the fact that she’s wearing scrubs now.

“You saw the news,” she says.

“I talked to her,” he says, holding up the phone. “I talked to her…” It’s the most he can get out before another sob takes his voice. Claire puts her arms around him, leaning his head on her shoulder, and lets him cry.

“She’s going to be OK,” Claire whispers when he’s done crying. She holds out a tissue. “You ever seen her fight?”

“Not in person.”

“Well, I have. I watched her take down a garage full of Russian mobsters with machine guns.” Claire swallows. “If anyone can get out of this mess, it’s her.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll be back in a sec.”

While she’s gone, he tries to breathe deep, the way Mattie once tried to teach him. He never got the hang of meditation, but the breathing seems to help. When Claire comes back, she has a wet towel in her hand, and Foggy presses the cool fabric against his swollen face. He hands the towel back to Claire.

“Where’s your friend?” she says.

“Checking on Mrs Cardenas.”

Claire nods, then gestures over her shoulder. “I gotta…”

“Yeah, yeah, go…help people, and shit.”

Claire puts her hand on his arm. “She’s going to be OK.”

_Maybe if we keep saying it, it’ll come true._

“Thanks, Claire.”

He lies back, and watches the news.

Karen comes back a few minutes later. Mrs Cardenas needed twelve stitches and a cast on her arm, but is apparently more angry than frightened at the night’s events.

“She’s pretty gung-ho about going back to her apartment,” Karen says. “If there’s an apartment to go back to.”

“Hopefully the fire department got to it before the damage was too bad,” Foggy says hollowly.

“You hear from Mattie?”

“No.”

Karen nods tensely and sits in the chair. Foggy turns away from her, and watches the news. A little while, maybe half an hour later, he hears a gentle snore, and glances over to see Karen curled up in the chair, fast asleep, and he envies her. He envies her not knowing what’s really going on out there. He envies her not knowing what Mattie does, not knowing what danger Mattie’s in.

 He thinks he hears the soft sound of Mattie’s cane on the floor. He must be imagining it.

The door to his room creaks a little, and Mattie steps in, and Foggy will do _anything_ to never feel like he has for the past few hours ever again.

She’s out of breath, like she ran here, and she probably did. He knows the way her lip is quivering, the way it does when she’s fighting to contain some emotion or other. He whispers her name, and she breaks, rushing to him, wrapping her arms around him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Foggy…”

“Hey, hey, you’re here. God, you’re here.” He buries his face against her. She smells like dust and blood, and he doesn’t care because she’s here, and she’s safe.

She pulls back, resting her forehead against his.

“We shouldn’t wake up Karen.”

“Right. Yeah. Here, climb up.”

She nods, and takes off her coat, which she clearly just threw on over a tank top and leggings. She kicks off her sneakers, too, drops her glasses on the table next to his phone, and climbs up onto the bed next to him, where he’s pulled the blanket down. It’s a close fit, the two of them, but they used to do this all the time, in freshman year, when they were too drunk to care about sharing a bed. Foggy pulls the blanket up over her.

“What happened to your side?” she whispers as she curls around him.

“Glass shard,” he whispers.

“Everyone else OK?”

“Mrs C broke her arm and needed stitches, but other than that, we’re OK.”

She nods, her brows furrowed and her mouth tight.

“Vladimir’s dead,” she says.

He nods, pressing his cheek against her hair.

“Don’t think about it right now, OK? Just try to get some sleep.”

She presses herself tighter against him, her hand clutching the gown over his heart. He covers her hand with his.

_Safe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to celebrate a little that The One Constant has just passed 5000 hits, and These Precious Things just passed 1000! Thank you, everyone, for reading this little series!


	7. The Survivor

The first thing Mattie thinks when she wakes up is _why the hell am I sleeping on sandpaper?_ Her skin is screaming at her, begging her to claw it off, but when she tries to sit up, her muscles protest, and the night comes crashing back to her.

_Vladimir screaming as she pressed the flare to his side._

_Vladimir taunting her, calling her a whore._

_Vladimir’s weight as she dragged him through the tunnels._

_Vladimir kissing her with a mouth full of blood._

She buries her head in her hands, trying to make the memories go away.

“Mattie?” comes Karen’s voice. “Are you OK?”

“Fine,” Mattie says, sitting up straighter.

“Just -“

The door swings open, and a nurse bustles in, waking Foggy up next to Mattie.

“Mr Nelson?” the nurse says.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Foggy says groggily. Mattie can smell the painkillers on him, smell the blood, and the rage rises inside her. _Fisk did this. Fisk hurt Foggy, and I will never let that happen again._

“OK, I’m going to have to ask you to get down from there,” says the nurse.

“Oh, uh, Mattie, she’s talking to you.”

“Oh, right,” Mattie says, climbing off the bed, not quite stifling a groan. She trails her fingers along the bedside table, finding her glasses. Karen hands her her shoes. The nurse checks Foggy’s side, and declares him fit to be released.

“That’s some bruising you got there…Mattie, was it?” the nurse says, her voice carefully light, and her heart speeding up.

“Sorry?”

“On your arm. Looks like someone grabbed you.”

_Vladimir grabbing her and throwing her to the floor, the two of them falling through two stories of rotten wood._

“Oh, uh, yeah. Stopped me from falling onto the subway tracks last night.” Mattie tries to smile.

“Huh,” says the woman. “You got any more you want me to have a look at?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“OK.” The nurse pauses. “You need us to have a look at anything, you come to the nurses’ station, OK?”

“I will, but I’m really fine.”

“OK,” the nurse repeats. “You’re good to go,” she says, presumably to Foggy. Her voice is like ice.

As she’s leaving, Karen runs after her, and Mattie hears, “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“ _Are_ you OK?” Foggy says, hauling himself out of the hospital bed. “You just look a little…”

“Banged up?” She shifts, can’t feel any broken bones or bad swelling. “I probably look worse than I am.”

“I was going to say shell-shocked.” He closes the door, and starts taking his hospital gown off. When he winces, Mattie goes to help him. “You said Vladimir was dead.”

“Fisk got him.” _Vladimir singing something in Russian, then gunfire._ “He gave me a name before he died, though. Fisk’s money man - Leland Owlsley.”

_“Leland Owlsley. He will give you what you think you want. But it won’t be enough. You know that now, don’t you?” Vladimir reached out, his hand on her neck, and for a moment, she thought he was trying to take off the mask. Instead, he pressed his mouth to hers, and she tasted blood._

“So that’s the next step?” Foggy says.

“Yeah. Follow the money.” She helps ease his shirt on; she can smell the blood dried on it, and feels guilty that she didn’t think to bring him a change of clothes when she’d stopped at home to change out of the suit.

He’s pulling on his pants when Karen knocks on the door, and they carefully pick their way through the crowded hospital. Karen says that Mrs Cardenas already left, once the roads had been cleared.

“She was pretty worried about the state of the apartment, so…” Karen trails off. “Ben!”

“What?” Mattie says, genuinely confused.

“I think she knows that guy,” Foggy says.

“Karen, what are you doing here?” comes a new voice. Male, older, in his fifties most likely. Mattie can hear stitches pulling on his skin and a sling shifting against his arm. “Were you -“

“No, no, I’m fine, I’m just here with my…” Karen waves a hand at Foggy and Mattie.

“Friends,” Foggy says. “Foggy Nelson, this is my fiancee Mattie Murdock.”

“Ben Urich,” says the other man.

“From the _Bulletin_?” Mattie says. Urich had written the Union Allied article.

“For my sins,” Urich says.

“What - what happened to you?” stammers Karen.

“You heard about how the woman in the mask shot up those cops?”

“Um, I heard that wasn’t confirmed yet,” says Foggy as Mattie shifts next to him.

“Yeah, well, whoever did it, got me with a stray one.” Urich laughs dryly. “Thirty years on the job, but this is a new one.”

“Are you OK?” says Karen.

“I’m fine,” Urich lies. “I’m told the ladies love scars. Speaking of which…I should go. I’ll be in touch, Karen. Nice to meet you.” Urich continues down the hallway.

“What?” says Karen impatiently, and Mattie realizes that Foggy must have been giving her a look.

“Just…I thought you didn’t want to talk to the press about Union Allied,” says Foggy.

“That…it’s a long story.” Karen strides down the hall in the opposite direction as Urich, letting Mattie and Foggy follow her out of the hospital. Karen flags down two cabs, and grabs Mattie’s arm as she’s about to follow Foggy into one of them. “You…if there’s anything you want to talk about…I’m here, OK? Anything at all.”

_A Russian mobster kissed me and gave his life for mine last night._

“Thanks, Karen. But I’m OK.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Mattie knows it’s not convincing, but what else can she say? “Get some sleep, Karen, we’ll see you this afternoon.”

Foggy collapses onto the bed as soon as they get home.

“OK, I totally get your thing about sheets now,” he mumbles. “These are _so much_ better.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Mattie says dryly. “You gonna be OK? I’m going to head out after I take a shower.”

Foggy reaches out, flapping his hand a little before he finds her arm. “You should get some sleep.”

“I got enough at the hospital. I just need to clear my head.”

“OK.”

She scrubs the stink of blood and dust and sweat and fear off herself, until her skin is raw and stinging from the hot water. She steadies herself against the shower wall, breathing in the clean, humid air.

_Handcuffs locking around her wrists, a gun pointed at her head. The smell of burning flesh. Foggy’s voice on the other end of the phone._

She turns off the hot water, shocking her body into the here and now.

_You think you’re different from me? From him?_

She dresses for work, and leaves.

For all the chaos of last night, the bombings were concentrated on the Russians’ territory, so most of Hell’s Kitchen is clear of any evidence of Fisk’s violence. There’s a lingering scent of smoke and dust in the air, but it’s not half as bad as she remembers from the Incident. Her feet lead her to the church, but she hesitates before entering.

_I couldn’t save him. It’s my fault he’s dead. I don’t deserve solace._

She pushes open the door.

She can hear Father Lantom in the basement, but there’s no one in the church. She brushes her fingertips along the pews, until she’s standing in front of the bank of votive candles. A lot of them are burning, more than usual, and she supposes that it makes sense, after last night. She fishes in her wallet and deposits four quarters in the box below the rack of candles, then finds a taper and a fresh candle. She lights it by feel, letting the heat tell her when the candle is lit, and she gently blows out the taper as she places the candle on the rack. She stands there in the warmth of the candles, smelling the melting wax and burning wicks, praying to whatever image is in front of her.

_Father, forgive him._

“Matilda?” Father Lantom is standing by the basement stairs. Mattie turns, startled. She quickly crosses herself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted -“

“It’s fine, Father.” She turns around, facing him, her head cocked.

“Wasn’t that hard to find out,” he says. “People still remember Battlin’ Jack Murdock around these parts. And what happened to his daughter.”

She nods and makes her way to the exit, letting her cane guide her.

“Is everything all right?” He catches himself. “Sorry, force of habit. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

Mattie’s tempted to say no and leave, but she finds herself tilting her head toward the candles.

“I lost someone last night,” she says. “He wasn’t a good man. He’d hurt people, people I care about. But now…”

“You still feel the need to mourn him.”

“Yes.”

“That’s good,” he says in that matter-of-fact way of his. “That’s human. Mourning isn’t about what they deserved. It’s that their presence left a mark on us.”

She grins, but there’s no humour to it. “Yeah. He definitely did.” She steps past him before he can say anything else, like offering her a latte. “Thank you, Father.”

***

Foggy’s blood is boiling by the time he gets into the office, and he hasn’t even read the article yet.

“‘The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,’” he announces to…well, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, apparently, who is reading something or other in her office while Karen’s on the phone speaking Spanish.

“What?” says Mattie, pulling out an earbud.

“That’s what they’re calling - her. The…woman in the mask.” He slaps the newspaper down on her desk. “It’s all over the papers.”

“Catchy,” she says mildly.

“Prejudicial.”

“Anything else in there?”

_Like, “Police are looking for a five-two blind Caucasian woman with super-senses?”_

Foggy skims the article. He’s half expecting to see the name “Matilda Murdock” outlined in flashing lights. “Nothing specific,” he mutters. She presses her lips together, but doesn’t say anything. “They’re calling her a terrorist.”

“That seems a little hasty,” Karen says behind him.

“It’s all speculation. Nobody knows if she’s a terrorist or what,” says Mattie.

“Right. Right. Because…” Karen gestures with her hand. “I mean, why would a terrorist help someone like me, right? There’s got to be more than her than just…”

“Exactly!” says Foggy. “And she should definitely not be tried and convicted in the press.”

“Yeah,” says Mattie dryly. “We’re lawyers, we know that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

“So,” says Karen, “um, hypothetically, if she got caught…needed counsel, Nelson and Murdock would offer to defend her?”

“Yes,” says Foggy without hesitation.

“It would be her right,” says Mattie, more tactfully.

“Even if she were guilty?” says Karen.

“Thought you were on her side,” says Foggy.

Karen shoots him a look that freezes him to the bone. “I’ve been wrong about people before.” She stalks back to her desk. Foggy glances back at Mattie, who has her head cocked and her eyebrows furrowed. “Right, well, I have this, uh, thing, so…” Foggy sees her sweep her keys off her desk, and recognizes a little canister of mace on the keychain.

“You’re heading out?” says Mattie.

“Yeah. Sorry I can’t leave on a note slightly higher than deeply depressing, but…”

“You’re right,” says Foggy, feeling a little desperate for Karen not to be mad at him. “Uh, high note! Softball! When are we getting a company team together?”

“We have three employees,” Karen says dismissively, striding past him.

“And at least two of them aren’t blind,” says Mattie brightly. She has the newspaper in her hands now, and Foggy can see her surreptitiously sliding her fingertips along the print.

“Naysayers, each and every one of you,” Foggy says.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mattie,” says Karen.

“Bye, Karen,” calls Mattie.

“See you tomorrow,” says Foggy. “We’ll be here, ready to high note and stuff.” Karen just scowls at him before she closes the door behind her. The sound of it closing hangs in the air.

“Why’s Karen mad at you?” says Mattie.

“Oh, you noticed that?”

“Well, I may be blind, but I can tell when the temperature drops ten degrees in the room.”

Foggy sighs and throws himself in the chair opposite Mattie.

“I don’t know! I don’t know. One minute, we’re having a perfectly pleasant dinner with Mrs Cardenas, then the world explodes, and Karen’s mad at me like I had something to do with it.”

“Did you say something? Or do something?”

“I…don’t think so? There were painkillers involved last night, some of it’s a bit fuzzy.”

Mattie’s expression softens. “How’s your side?”

“Downgraded to agony.” He gestures at the paper in her hands. “You see the names of the cops?”

“Yeah.” She puts down the paper. “Hoffman’s dead, Blake’s in critical.”

“Why would Fisk have his own men killed?”

Mattie brushes her fingertip over a line of text. “I get the feeling he was cleaning house. Both Blake and Hoffman gave me information on him; if he found out…”

“Boom,” Foggy says, making a pistol gesture at his head. “He’s setting you up, you know.”

“I kind of realized that,” she says dryly.

“No, I mean…as long as the cops think you’re the shooter, they’re probably going to be looking to settle things the old-fashioned way.” He watches her lips tighten and the muscles of her jaw move.

“Yeah, it’s more than likely.” She takes a deep breath, then pulls out a small stack of braille-printed paper. “This is everything I could find on Owlsley. It isn’t much, but…”

Foggy swallows his annoyance that she’s avoiding the issue. “Enough to find him?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” He reaches forward and puts his hand over hers. “Are you OK? I mean, after…everything?”

He can see “fine” hanging on her lips, then she shakes her head. “No. I’m not. But this is the only way that I can make it right.”

Foggy nods. “Then let’s go home and get you into your black pyjamas.”

Foggy can’t mix alcohol with his painkillers, so he luxuriates in the bathtub instead when Mattie goes out. It’s been twenty-four hours (or close enough) since his stitches were put in, so he scrubs away the crust of blood and thinks how ridiculous it was that he once got grossed out by things like that. When his skin starts to prune, he gets out and dresses in his pyjamas. He can’t stand to think about Fisk and the bombings right now, so instead he goes over the guest list for the wedding. It’s small by design, but there’s still a little room. He adds Karen’s name to the bottom of the list, and thinks about the canister of mace on her keychain. 

_Everyone has secrets._

He adds Claire’s name after Karen’s. After everything she’s done for them, the least they can do is give her a free meal and a couple glasses of champagne. He’ll have to check with Mattie first, since Claire had hinted last night that she’d left under not-so-congenial circumstances.

He emails Pam about the wedding colors, since Mattie doesn’t give a shit about that, but he needs to know for his tux.

He hears the roof door open, and he turns to see Mattie coming down the stairs, a man following her. He’s old, Foggy would guess in his seventies, but he looks so tough and wiry that Foggy instantly decides that fucking with him would be a bad idea. And he’s blind. His eyes are clouded, fixed, but he moves the same way Mattie does when no-one else is around.

“What -“ Foggy starts.

“What a shithole,” the guy declares as they descend the stairs.

“You have any idea what we pay in rent?” snaps Mattie. She tugs off the mask, and Foggy can see the irritation in her face, fighting with something else.

“Expensive shithole.” He stops, and Foggy could swear the guy was looking _through_ him. He sniffs. “Who’s the fat kid?”

“Hey!” snaps Mattie.

“I’m her fiance,” says Foggy coldly. He looks at Mattie. “What’s going on?”

“Stick, Foggy,” Mattie says tightly, gesturing between the two of them.

“ _That’s_ Stick?” Foggy can feel the anger rising, the pent-up rage he’s felt for the man ever since Mattie told him what he’d done to her.

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Foggy takes in the scowling old man. “Thought he’d be Asian.”

“He’s not?”

“White.”

“Cute,” says Stick in a tone that says _anything but_. “What the hell kind of name is Foggy anyway?”

“What kind of name is Stick?” Foggy retorts.

“The kind you earn, kid. So,” Stick drawls, “you’re getting married? Gonna squirt out your two and a half kids, too?”

“That’s none of your business,” says Mattie.

Stick steps in close to her, and Foggy fights the urge to get between them. Mattie holds her ground.

“You care about him?” Stick growls.

“I love him,” she says, and Foggy’s heart swells at the certainty in her voice.

“Then cut him loose, Mattie.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Then he’ll suffer and you will die. He’s a distraction, Mattie, just like furniture, apartments…” Stick sniffs the air again. “Whoa. Silk sheets.”

“Bullshit,” says Foggy.

“Foggy,” Mattie says, holding out her hand, and he hears her. _This is my fight._ “This is my life, and I made something of it, without you. That’s the part that really pisses you off, isn’t it?”

“No, Mattie,” Stick says. “No, I’m proud of you, I really am. The things you’ve done, what you’ve made of yourself…” Foggy sees some expression flit across Mattie’s face, and he wonders if Stick knows. “But…this is…Surrounding yourself with soft stuff isn’t life, it’s death. Someday those silk sheets are gonna crawl up behind you, wrap themselves around your throat and choke you to death. You’re a warrior.”

“Yeah,” she says, tilting up her chin, and Foggy thinks that she’s never been more beautiful. “That’s not all I am.”

“A warrior, heir to the Spartans, baddest of the badasses.”

Foggy snorts. “Yeah, until they were defeated by the…Thebans? Then the Macedonians. Then the Romans.” Stick scowls at him. Mattie drops her chin, and Foggy can see her lips pressed together to keep from laughing.

“He took an Ancient History elective in undergrad,” she says, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“Yeah, I bet he’s a real catch,” Stick says, the sarcasm thick in the air. “Get rid of him, for his sake. Relationships are a luxury people like you and me can’t afford.”

“Is that why you left?” says Foggy cynically. “To protect her?”

“Foggy -“ warns Mattie.

“I had my reasons.”

“No, you think that because you spent three years smacking her around before she hit puberty, you have a right to walk in and tell her how to live her life? You’ve been gone for fifteen years, she’s moved on from you, and I’ve been here for her for a lot longer than you ever were.”

“You made her soft, kid, and she’ll get herself killed because of you.”

Mattie is trying to pull Foggy away, and he realizes that he’s nose-to-nose with the old man.

“She was just a kid.”

“Still is.”

“OK, that’s enough,” Mattie says, getting between them. She puts both hands on Foggy’s chest, pushing him backwards. “Enough.”

“Still need to attach yourself to the nearest man,” says Stick, his voice dripping with disdain. “‘Boo-hoo. Stick left me. Think I’ll work out my sorrows on the nearest hard -‘“

Mattie turns, and her fist sails toward Stick’s face in a graceful arc. Stick moves faster than Foggy has ever seen a human being move, and he’s not sure what happens, but Stick has Mattie pulled against him, holding her by her hair.

“Should’ve kept the short hair, Mattie,” Stick says.

Mattie strikes out, and Foggy can’t follow what happens, but she spins out of Stick’s grip.

“I _like_ the long hair,” she growls, squaring up against Stick. She darts in again, throwing punches, and Stick deflects them, barely moving a muscle, before he grabs her arm and twists it behind her, bringing her to her knees. There’s a moment of perfect stillness, and Foggy can hear Mattie breathing, then she flips forward, her body rotating around her trapped arm, until both she and Stick are on the ground. Foggy feels the wall against his back, and he realizes that he’s backed himself up against it.

And Stick _laughs_.

“Took you fifteen years to learn how to get out of that one,” he says.

Foggy has a horrible image of thirteen-year-old Mattie trapped with her arm twisted behind her.

Mattie gets to her feet. “Yeah, I’ve learned a lot since you’ve been gone,” she says. She offers her hand to Stick, and helps him up.

“Like what?”

“You’re a dick.” Foggy snorts his approval.

Stick seems to consider it. “That’s true. You got any beer?”

Mattie grins. “Yeah, in the fridge.”

_What the hell just happened?!_

“What -“ he starts, but Mattie just pats his chest.

“It’s OK,” she says.

“I’ll bet…it’s that German piss, isn’t it?” Stick says, reaching into the fridge.

“Actually, it’s -“ Foggy starts to explain that it’s a local craft brew, but Mattie shakes her head.

“So, you going to tell me why you’re here?” she says. “Or is the suspense supposed to kill me?”

Stick doesn’t seem to be big on sharing. He tells Mattie vaguely about the “never-ending war,” and how the Yakuza (Foggy thinks) are bringing in a weapon called the Black Sky. Mattie is unimpressed.

“Just say it,” she says.

“Say what?” Stick says.

“Say that you want my help.”

“I want you to help yourself. Nobu and his guys are in tight with Fisk. You hurt them, you hurt baldy.”

“You know about Fisk?” Foggy says.

Stick scoffs. “I know a lot of shit. This beer, for example, sucks.”

Mattie sits down opposite Stick. “After all your talk about cutting people loose, and…now you need me.”

“I don’t need _you_ ,” Stick says, sounding offended. “I need a _soldier_. Committed. Not some bleeding heart idealist hanging onto half measures.”

“You don’t know anything about what I’m doing here.”

“Kid, in war, people die. If it’s not you, it’s the guy next to you. How many men have you killed protecting this city?” 

“She doesn’t have to,” says Foggy. “She’s not your soldier.” _And killing someone would destroy her._

“Yeah? Well, someday, it’s going to come down to her or the other guy. If it’s not Fisk, somebody else.” Stick turns his face to Mattie. “What’re you going to do then, Mattie?”

“Yeah, a Russian asshole asked me the same thing recently. Right before he died.” Foggy can see the haunted look on her face. _Vladimir’s dead._

“Are you the one that put him in the ground?”

“No.”

“Half measures, Mattie.” Stick takes another swig of beer, and puts down the bottle. Foggy resists the urge to tell him to use a coaster. “Ah, screw it. Ride with me tonight. Help me destroy Black Sky, keep it off the streets, and I promise you this: Wilson Fisk will know the taste of fear the day he faces you, ‘cause he’ll know that you kicked the guy he’s afraid of right in the nuts. What do you say, kid?”

It’s tempting. Even Foggy can see that. He knows Mattie is rattled from last night, and dangling Fisk in front of her is too much to pass up.

“One rule,” she says. “You don’t kill anybody.”

Sticks sighs and holds up his right hand. “I swear I will not kill anybody.” Mattie nods, and Stick lowers his hand. “Pussy.”

“Fuck you,” is out of Foggy’s mouth before he can stop it. He sees the corner of Mattie’s mouth twitch.

“Let’s go,” she says, standing up. She pulls on the mask, then takes Foggy’s face between her hands and kisses him thoroughly. He gets the message. _I’ll choose you, every time._ Stick won’t change that.

It’s going to take him a little while to process the fact that kissing her in the mask feels like the fulfillment of some fantasy.

Mattie and Stick disappear up the stairs, leaving Foggy in the too-quiet apartment, trying not to think about the fact that his fiancee just left to help her abusive former mentor. Who does not seem to have mellowed one iota with age.

When Mattie had told him about Stick, Foggy had suspected that there was more she wasn’t telling him. He’d kept his suspicions to himself, only once putting them into words, and she’d decisively shot him down. “Stick never touched me,” she’d said, and he believed her. Never touched her in that way, at least, thank God. But after only ten minutes in the man’s presence, he can see what she hadn’t told him. Stick had never molested her, true, but Foggy can see that he’d never touched her except to hurt her, either. He’d gotten into her head, a vulnerable ten-year-old aching for affection, and told her she’d never deserve love, that she’d always be alone.

Foggy sends up a prayer to Mattie’s God, apologizing for blaming her Catholicism for her belief that she doesn’t deserve to be loved.

He thinks of Mattie’s hair, the way he likes to run his fingers through it. Stick had told her to keep it short, he’s sure of that now, too. When had she started growing it out? End of undergrad, he thinks. Just after Elektra left.

“Karen. Karen. Karen,” announces Mattie’s phone on the bedside table. Foggy lets it go to voicemail. Then a minute later, it starts ringing again. The third time, Foggy picks it up.

“Karen?”

“Señor Foggy?” It’s Mrs Cardenas.

“Mrs Cardenas? Is everything all right?”

“No, Señor Foggy. Señorita Page - is hurt.”

“What? Is she OK?”

“I call ambulance, it’s coming. But Señorita Page - want to talk to Señorita Murdock?”

“She’s not here. What happened?”

“Men hurt her, across street from here -“

“Oh my God. Can she talk? Can you give her the phone?”

He hears a quick conversation between Mrs Cardenas and Karen, who seems unhappy that he’s the one on the other end of the phone.

“Foggy?” comes Karen’s voice.

“Karen, what happened?”

“I was attacked. Tully’s workmen, I’m pretty sure. Can I talk to Mattie?”

“She’s not here. She’s…out. With a friend. Look, I’ll come over.”

“I’m probably going to have to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll meet you there. Metro General?”

Karen sighs. “Yeah.”

“I’ll be there.”

He leaves a voicemail on Mattie’s phone for when she gets back, then dresses in something resembling real clothes before heading out to the hospital. Karen and Mrs Cardenas are already there, as is Brett Mahoney, who is taking their statements while Karen sits in a wheelchair, her leg propped up in front of her. Her ankle is purple and swollen. Brett nods to Foggy as Karen finishes, then goes over to two handcuffed men with raw red faces, flanked by two other police officers.

“What happened?” Foggy says.

“Those assholes over there attacked me,” Karen says. 

“Señorita Page teach them a lesson,” says Mrs Cardenas proudly.

“What did you do?” says Foggy.

“Maced them,” says Karen, stone-cold. “Not before one of them broke my ankle,” she finishes regretfully.

“Serves them right.”

“Yeah.” She looks him in the eye, and Foggy feels pinned. “Why were you answering Mattie’s phone?”

“She left it behind. You called three times, I thought it might be something important.”

“Hm.” Karen seems unconvinced, her lips a thin line pressed together.

“Karen Page?” comes a familiar voice. Foggy turns to see the very welcome sight of Claire Temple. “Hey, Foggy.”

“Hey, Claire.”

“Wasn’t expecting to see you guys back so soon.”

“What can I say, can’t stay away from you,” Foggy says. Claire chuckles.

“Don’t know if Foggy introduced us last night,” Claire says to Karen, “but I’m Claire.”

“I remember,” says Karen coldly, and Foggy is pretty sure she’s scowling at him.

“Nice to meet you?” Karen huffs assent. “OK, let’s see what we can do about that ankle. Foggy, I’ll let you know when you can come in.” Claire wheels Karen off, and Foggy is left with Mrs Cardenas. He glances over to where Karen’s attackers are sitting, and Brett meets his eye. Deliberately, Brett strolls out the main door.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Foggy tells Mrs Cardenas. He follows Brett outside.

“Those men are working for Armand Tully,” Foggy says.

“That’s what your secretary and Mrs Cardenas said,” says Brett.

“What are _they_ saying?”

“That they saw a nicely dressed girl in a crappy neighborhood, and thought they could get some quick cash by grabbing her purse.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“I know. And you know. Everyone knows. But nobody can prove it. Not yet, anyway.”

“Karen’ll press charges. We’ll take them to court.”

“Good. But until then…”

Foggy sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “Yeah. We can do fuck all.”

“And connecting Tully to this…”

“There has to be something. Hiring agreements, contractor’s licenses.”

“Sure. But prove that they were operating on his orders when they attacked her? That’s going to be tough.”

“Yeah? Just means I’m going to enjoy nailing them to the wall even more.” The automatic doors open, and Foggy stalks back in to sit with Mrs Cardenas.

It’s another hour before Claire comes to tell him he can go in to see Karen. They’re waiting for the x-rays to come in, which will determine whether the doctors will recommend surgery or not. Karen is pale and sweaty, but lucid. She talks mostly to Mrs Cardenas in Spanish, seems to be thanking her for something.

The curtain around the bed is swept open, making all three of them jump, but it’s just Mattie, looking worse for wear. Foggy takes in a split lip and a cut on her eyebrow, blood trickling down.

“Karen, are you OK?” she says.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” Karen says.

“Had a disagreement with someone. What happened?”

“Tully’s guys jumped her outside Mrs Cardenas’ apartment,” Foggy says. And because he’s angry, too, he says. “They’re out there with the cops. Karen maced them.”

Mattie cocks her head, and Foggy has never been more terrified of her.

“I got them,” she says quietly, and Foggy can’t help but feel something dark and red smile inside him. _The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen knows who you are._ “Nice going, Karen.”

“Yeah, just wish I could have done it _before_ they broke my ankle,” grumbles Karen.

Mattie’s mouth tilts up at the corner. “Hindsight,” she says dryly.

Foggy puts his hand on Mattie’s arm and tugs her away. “Can I talk to you?”

He takes her out into the hall, then sees a restroom and pulls her in. It’s a handicapped restroom, a single room, so nobody should be coming in.

“What happened with Stick?” he says. “The…Black Sky thing?”

“It was -“ She swallows, and leans back against the wall, as if she doesn’t have the energy to keep herself upright. “Black Sky was a kid. Stick came here to kill him, and I couldn’t stop him.”

“Jesus.” He cups her cheek, brushing his thumb over her lip. “He do this to you?”

She hesitates. “Yeah, he did.”

“You get him back?”

She huffs a little chuckle, but there’s no humor in it. “Yeah. We kind of wrecked the apartment.”

“Please tell me it was in the ‘spilled red wine on the carpet’ kind of way.”

“More like the ‘he threw me through the bedroom door and I smashed him into the stairs’ kind of way.” She tucks her chin down, the way she does when she’s upset. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He grabs a paper towel out of the dispenser, wets it in the sink, and starts daubing the blood off her face. “You were right. He’s a dick.”

She nods miserably, then she pulls her hand out of her coat pocket. She opens it to show him a crumpled circle of paper, white with brightly colored dots. It had once been braided neatly, but Foggy can see the worn and tattered edges.

“What’s that?”

“I made it,” she says. “When I was thirteen. For him. It was why he left.” Her hand closes around the bracelet, and all Foggy can see is the lost thirteen-year-old who still doesn’t understand why she was abandoned. “I thought he’d thrown it away. I don’t know - I don’t know why he kept it.”

“Don’t,” Foggy says, putting his hand around hers. “Don’t go down that road. He’s just messing with your head, OK?”

“It’s not -“ she says tiredly.

“It is. He’s just manipulating you, because he wants you to think you need him, and you don’t. Don’t - don’t let him convince you that he was some great mentor to you, OK? He’s…” Foggy searches for the words. “He’s not your Dumbledore, OK? He’s Aunt Petunia.”

She tilts her head skeptically. “I think you’re stretching the _Harry Potter_ analogy a bit there.” Her voice shakes underneath the bravado.

“I’m really not. He hurt you, he tried to break you, and he couldn’t.” He leans his forehead against hers. She’s not crying, but her breathing is harsh, like she’s trying to keep it all down. “You are _so much_ better than him.”

He puts his arms around her, and she collapses against his chest. He holds her there for a long time, just letting her breathe and feel safe.

***

When they leave the hospital, it’s almost morning. Foggy jokes that Claire should make sure to have beds waiting for them tomorrow night.

Karen doesn’t need surgery, but she’ll be on crutches for six weeks. Elena volunteers to take her home, and Karen seems confident that between the two of them, they can manage, so Mattie and Foggy get a cab home. The cops and Karen’s attackers are long gone, but Mattie doesn’t mind. She can always find them later, once they’ve been released on bail. And she has no doubt that Tully will arrange for bail.

Foggy lets out a breath as he steps into the disaster area that used to be their apartment.

“Jesus, you weren’t kidding,” he says. He picks up a shard of plastic from the floor, probably from the bedroom door.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, it just…”

“No, don’t be, kitten,” he says absently as he examines the broken step at the bottom of the stairs. His heart is beating fast, and she can’t tell if he’s lying.

“You don’t call me that anymore,” she says.

“What?”

“Kitten.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t seem appropriate. You know, for my badass vigilante fiancee.” His head turns, he must be looking up at her. “Why?”

She sets one of the armchairs back upright and sits on the arm, facing him. “Dunno. Just…miss it, I guess.” He turns around to face her. “I’m sorry about all of this,” she says, gesturing to the broken door and step. Foggy sighs.

“It’s…it shouldn’t be too much trouble. I’ll call my dad, see if he can order us a new panel for the door. And I think I can fix the step, I’ll do that tomorrow morning. The coffee table’s a goner, though.” He stands up, then bends over and picks up one of Stick’s eskrima batons, turning it over in his hand.

“I need to tell you something,” she says. “About what happened last night.”

“OK.”

She tells him about Fisk on the radio, about the dirty cops he sent in after her, and Vladimir walking back to face them alone. And Vladimir kissing her before he died.

“Did you - no, you know what? It doesn’t matter,” Foggy says, from where he’s sitting on the newly-righted couch.

“I thought you’d be mad.”

“I’m not -“ he lies. She arches her eyebrows. “OK, yeah, I’m pissed, but mostly at him, and it’s not like I can kick his ass for kissing my fiancee. So, let’s just…I mean, are you planning on making this a habit?”

“What, kissing mobsters before they die?”

“Yeah. Not that I really blame him, I mean, if I were about to die, I’d want to make out with you, too.”

“It wasn’t making out…”

“Good.” He adjusts his shirt, the way he does when he’s uncomfortable.

“Are we OK?” she says, her heart hammering.

There’s a long pause, and Foggy’s heart says he’s nervous and tired. “Yeah, we’re fine,” he lies.

She can’t bring herself to call him on it.


	8. Queen of Hearts

Mattie sleeps for a few hours, dreaming fitfully of blood and fire and Russian mobsters. Waking up is only slightly better, her body protesting against the slightest movement. She tries to quietly clear away the debris in the living room while Foggy sleeps, but he wakes up when she’s coming in from her second trip down to the dumpster.

“I was going to do that,” he says from the bed.

“It’s OK, I don’t mind.”

His response is cut off by Mattie’s phone chirping Karen’s name.

“Karen,” Mattie says, “please tell me you’re not trying to come into work today.”

“What?” comes Karen’s voice. “Oh. No. I, uh, I just - I thought it might be nice if you came over for lunch. You know, just the two of us.”

“Oh.” Mattie pauses, listening to Foggy as he makes his way to the bathroom. “Yeah, that - that would be nice.”

“OK,” says Karen brightly. “Um, see you in about an hour?”

“Sure.”

Mattie leaves Foggy to his power tools (and how the man _loves_ his power tools) as he gets to work fixing the step, and takes the subway over to the West side, where Karen’s new apartment is. It’s a high rise, much nicer than her old building, although Mattie really wasn’t in the old one under the best of circumstances. When Mattie approaches Karen’s door, she hears two heartbeats inside the apartment, and recognizes Ben Urich from the hospital. He’s the one who opens the door when she knocks.

“Mattie Murdock, right?” he says. She just cocks her head, and she’s not faking the curiosity on her face. “Sorry. Ben Urich. We met at the hospital.” He holds out his hand, the one not in the sling.

“Right. Sorry, yes, that’s me.” She holds out her hand, three inches to his left. He shakes it.

“C’mon in.” He puts his hand on her shoulder, and she jumps in that way that she’s perfectly calibrated over the years. She lets him lead her into the apartment.

“Mattie!” calls Karen. She’s sitting on her couch, her leg propped up in front of her.

“Hey, Karen. How’s the ankle?” says Mattie, sitting opposite her.

“Ugh,” Karen groans. “Don’t ask.”

“She’s a little grumpy,” says Ben, and there’s a note of fond amusement in his voice. _How long have they known each other?_

“Have you been helping her out?” Mattie says.

“Just got here a few minutes ago. Brought sandwiches.” Mattie can smell deli sandwiches in the kitchen. Sarge’s, if her nose is right.

“I thought -“ Mattie says, turning to Karen.

“Actually, I wanted you to meet Ben,” Karen says. “For real, not just running out of the hospital.”

Ben sighs. “Still think we shouldn’t be involving anyone else.”

“Mattie’s not just anyone, all right? She’s a kick-ass attorney, and sooner or later, we’re going to need one of those.” _Oh, no._ “You can trust her, Ben. She’s one of the good ones.”

“Karen,” Mattie says. “What’s going on?”

Karen shifts in her seat. She turns her face to Ben, who shrugs.

“You’re the one who wanted to bring her in,” he says.

Karen takes a breath, steeling herself.

“We’re investigating Union Allied,” she says.

“What?” Mattie says. “You can’t be doing that.”

“Why not?”

“For starters, you signed legal papers and took money to leave it alone.”

“No, I signed papers saying that I wouldn’t go public. And I won’t. That’s where Ben comes in. To break the story.”

“What story, exactly?” Mattie has a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“That whoever is behind Union Allied, or whatever they call themselves now, they are trying to strong-arm people like Elena so that they can sweep their homes away from them and build condos no one can afford.”

_Tully._ Mattie swears inwardly. She should have known he was involved with Fisk, should have noticed the connection, but she was too busy dicking around with the Russians.

“Karen -“ It comes out too harsh, so she tries again. “You can’t be doing this. Tully’s already sent people after you, if you keep going, they’re going to hurt you worse.”

Ben makes a little noise of agreement.

“You’re right,” says Karen sharply. “Those bastards have hurt me. And I don’t care what I signed or how much money they paid me to forget. I don’t. And I’m not just going to stick my head in the sand and let it happen to somebody else because I am scared. Which I am. A lot.” Her heart is hammering with emotion, but it’s all true. Mattie drops her head into her hands, and wishes Foggy were here.

“Trust me,” Ben says, “you’re not going to change her mind.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that,” Mattie says. She sits up. “OK, what have you got?”

“Come over here,” Karen says, her voice noticeably brighter. Mattie sits next to her. “Ben’s got a system,” says Karen as Ben starts laying out playing cards on the coffee table. Mattie can smell Sharpie ink. “He’s got it all laid out. All of the, uh, possible connections, starting at the bottom, and moving up.” She takes Mattie’s hand and puts it on the bottom row of cards, the one with the most cards. “So, here we have the Russians. We know they’re involved in extortion and human trafficking.” Mattie swallows as her fingers brush the card. _I think…maybe I stay._

“ _Were_ involved,” says Ben. “The woman in the mask took care of them pretty thoroughly with the bombings.”

“We don’t know that,” says Karen. She moves Mattie’s hand over to another card. “Then we have the Triads, heroin dealers. And over here, the Yakuza. And _here_ ,” she places Mattie’s hand on a card. “Union Allied. Which was dissolved and broken up, and re-formed into something else, we don’t know what.” 

 “But we know it involves Armand Tully.”

“Right. But it all leads…” Karen traces Mattie’s hand up to the central card. “To him.”

_Fisk._

“Who’s he?” Mattie says.

“The King of Diamonds,” says Karen.

“The man at the top,” says Ben.

“Any idea who he is?” says Mattie, hoping to all hell that they have one, so she won’t have to feed it to them.

“No,” Karen says. “But I think he might have been the one behind Union Allied.”

“There’s another player in the field,” Ben says, laying down a card next to the King of Diamonds. “The woman in black.”

“Queen of Hearts,” says Karen in an undertone, before raising her voice so Ben can hear her. “She _has_ to be working against the King, she never would have helped me expose Union Allied if she were working for him.”

“I’ve got a bullet in my arm that makes me a little less inclined to trust her,” says Ben. “But the question is…” He taps the two cards. “Which one trumps the other?”

_Queen of Hearts over King of Diamonds._

“OK,” Mattie says. “ _If_ you’re right, that this is all connected…“ She sweeps her hand over the table. “Then we have to be smart about this, or you’re going to get hurt. Again.”

“We?” says Karen smugly.

“We do this, it’s going to be on our turf. The legal system.”

“That’s not nearly as heroic as you might think.”

“I don’t want anyone to be a hero, Karen. I want you to be safe.”

Ben chuffs a little.

“What?” Karen snaps.

“I like her,” he says mildly.

“We should bring Foggy in on this,” says Mattie.

“I don’t think -“ starts Karen.

“If we’re taking these guys on, we’re going to need all the help we can get. And Foggy’s got the best memory for legal details of anyone I know.”

“That’s the fiance?” says Ben.

“Yeah,” says Karen tightly.

“And partner,” says Mattie. “And if we’re going to be putting the firm, _everything_ that he and I are trying to build, on the line, then he deserves a say in how we do it.”

“I just - I don’t think Foggy would…I’d prefer to keep it to as few people as possible, is all.” _Lie._

“I’m not going to lie to him, Karen. You want me to be involved, that has to include Foggy.”

“I don’t -“ 

“Mattie, would you excuse us for a minute?” says Ben smoothly.

“Sure,” says Mattie. “I could use something to drink anyway.”

“I’ll get you a glass.”

Ben leads her into the kitchen and puts a glass in her hand. He opens the fridge and identifies the available drinks, leaving her to pour her own. She hears them talking as she pours herself an orange juice and sips it, standing at the counter and wincing as the acid hits her split lip.

“Ben, I told you -“ Karen starts.

“I know,” Ben says. “But whatever you think of the guy, there’s a difference between our personal lives and working on this. So tell me - can we trust him with this?”

“I…” Mattie can practically hear Karen putting her chin in her hand, the way she does when she’s unsure. There’s a soft rustle of fabric as she shifts in her seat. “Up until two days ago, I would have said I trust him as much as I trust you or Mattie.”

_What the hell happened between Karen and Foggy?_

“And now?” 

Karen sighs. “I don’t think he’d do anything to get us hurt.”

“I’ve bet my career on worse,” says Ben dryly. There’s a pause, and the faint wisp of Karen’s hair brushing her shoulders as she moves her head. 

“But you saw…” Karen says.

“Yeah. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a talk with her.” _Wait, what did I do?_ Ben gets up from the couch, and Mattie quickly finishes her glass and turns on the tap, rinsing it out. “Why don’t we get started on those sandwiches?” Ben says.

“Sounds good, the smell’s been killing me,” says Mattie. Ben takes the bag of sandwiches and gently leads her back into the living room, depositing her next to Karen. “So?”

“OK, you can tell Foggy. But, Mattie…” Mattie cocks her head, listening to Karen’s hammering heart. “I _trust_ you, OK? And I’ll listen…if you ever need…anything.”

“Thanks, Karen,” says Mattie, completely and utterly confused. “So, why don’t you tell me how you connect Tully to all of this?”

They eat their sandwiches as Ben and Karen go over the connections they’ve drawn between the various players in the game. Then Ben sweeps the cards one-handed off the table and heads back to his office, and Mattie sighs.

“My Civil Procedure professor used to say that lawyering was all about the legwork. Guess what we’re going to do?”

“Ugh, don’t mention legs,” says Karen.

“Figure of speech,” Mattie says, pulling out her phone. “I’ll get Foggy to bring over all the stuff we have on Elena’s case. Unless you feel like dragging yourself into the office on your ankle?”

“Oh, no, staying here is good. I’ll just…meld with the couch.”

“Just don’t die of bedsores.”

When Foggy arrives, he calls Mattie down to help bring up the second of the boxes of files he brought.

“Karen’s still mad at you,” Mattie says as she props the box up on her hip, navigating with her cane in the other hand. “I heard her saying that it happened two days ago. What happened?” 

“I don’t know!” Foggy says truthfully.

“Yeah, well, I think you need to figure it out. Somehow.”

“How can I do that when I don’t even know…oh, wait.” He presses the button for the elevator. “She was pretty pissed off to see Claire last night.”

“Why would she be? She doesn’t even know Claire.”

“Except for the night before, when Claire was helping us.”

“So?”

“What if she thinks…” Foggy jerks the box in his hands around inarticulately.

“What, you and Claire?”

“Maybe? I mean, we’re _not_.”

“I know you’re not.” The elevator pings, and Foggy nudges her in.

“Speaking of which, what happened with you and her? When I saw her at the hospital, she said she’d left…”

_Do you realize how close you are to becoming what you hate?_

“Yeah, she did,” says Mattie. “She was right, too. She usually is.”

“You guys OK?”

“Yeah. I think. It’s a little complicated.”

“I was just thinking we should invite her to the wedding.”

Mattie pauses. “Yeah. That would be nice.” _That would be normal._

Normal is talking about inviting friends to weddings. Normal is taking care of an injured friend. Mattie used to think that normal was working with Foggy and Karen, but she’s going to have to reconsider that, since she’s pretty certain that normal doesn’t mean investigating international conglomerates who are complicit in blowing up half of Hell’s Kitchen.

Although, normal _is_ making sure that Foggy keeps working when he starts whining that he’s going stir-crazy. She’s been doing _that_ for eight years.

The only progress they make in the afternoon is connecting Westmeyer-Holt Contracting to Confederated Global Investments, and both companies to complaints of tenants being forced from their homes.

Punching people has much more instant gratification.

“Oh, my God,” says Karen, her laptop resting on a cushion across her knees.

“What’ve you got?” says Mattie.

“Uh, no, it’s not about…the New York _Bulletin_ online just reported that that cop that got shot, he just regained consciousness.”

“Detective Blake?”

“Yeah.”

“Guy’s a real dick,” says Foggy. “But I’d be interested in what he has to say about what happened.”

“Yeah, so would I,” says Mattie. Foggy reaches across and squeezes her hand. A question. “You know, uh, it’s late, and you’re probably tired, we should let you get some rest.”

“Oh, no, it’s…” Karen says.

“No, she’s right, it’s been a long day for everyone,” says Foggy. “Uh, do you need help getting around, or -“ 

“I can manage, Foggy,” Karen snaps.

“OK…” Foggy starts packing up the files, leaving some for Karen to go over on her own, then Mattie’s practically dragging him out the door because Fisk could have gotten to Blake by now, she needs to go.

Blake’s room is one one of the upper floors of the hospital; apparently, the cops haven’t got the memo about her parkouring skills. She can hear his heartbeat, weak but steady, as she shimmies down the wall to his window. She hears Brett’s voice outside his door, talking to a nurse who is apparently new, but has clearance. The nurse is lying. Brett lets the nurse in, and Mattie hears the nurse whisper “Mr Fisk sends his regards.”

She slams through the window and throws the nurse to the ground. By the bed, Blake is panicking, his heartbeat skyrocketing, and there’s a syringe rolling under the bed. The nurse punches her, and rolls to his feet, clearly well able to fight her. Brett throws the door open, and _dammit, Brett, why did you have to be the only decent cop in Hell’s Kitchen?!_ Mattie kicks a chair into Brett’s path, knocking the wind out of him, before ducking the nurse’s swinging fists. She gets in close, hitting his body, before he slams her against the wall. Brett’s fumbling with his gun, and Mattie grapples with the nurse, throwing him against the hard edge of the chair, forcing Brett back into the doorway. The nurse collapses to the floor. Mattie rolls and scoops up the syringe, and throws it so that the needle sticks in the upholstery of the chair.

“Down on the ground!” Brett shouts, his gun finally out.

An agonized, unused voice rasps out, “Wasn’t her.” Brett glances at Blake on the bed, and Mattie flips backwards, out the window. She’s up on the roof before Brett even thinks to look up instead of down.

She manages to get the whole story out to Foggy as she downs several glasses of water, and then Foggy’s reaching for his phone.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

“Calling Brett.” 

“You can’t do that!”

“Why not? He probably knows who that fake nurse was.”

“How are you going to explain how you know about it?”

“I’ll say Claire told me.” He presses the screen and Mattie can hear the call ringing. Her hand jerks forward, but he’s out of reach, and she doesn’t have the energy to fight him.

“This isn’t a good time,” comes Brett’s voice.

“And a good evening to you, too!” Foggy chirps. “Heard there was a little altercation at the hospital, thought you might want to give us some deets, see if we can offer our services?”

_Deets? Really?_

“How’d you hear about that?” snaps Brett.

“Friend at the hospital. So…is there a perp?”

“No perp. Devil of Hell’s Kitchen showed up, got away. That’s all I’m allowed to say.” Brett is speaking very carefully and deliberately.

“Heard something about a _male_ perp.”

“Heard wrong. No-one’s in custody. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to give my statement. Again.” Brett hangs up.

“He knows something,” Foggy says.

“No shit,” says Mattie. “He heard Blake say that it wasn’t me, it’s the only reason I don’t have a bullet in me.” Foggy’s heartbeat picks up. “It’s fine. But if they didn’t arrest the fake nurse…”

“Then Fisk is already spreading the story that you tried to kill Blake.”

“And I’ll bet anything that Brett didn’t want to be overheard saying anything different.”

“Shit.” Foggy flops down on the couch next to her.

“So the question becomes…can we trust Brett to do the right thing?”

“You mean, not wind up on Fisk’s payroll?”

“Yeah.”

Foggy lets out a long breath.

“I’ve known him a _long_ time, Mattie. He was ratting _me_ out to our parents when we were three. If he thought there was something dirty going on, he wouldn’t want to be a part of it.” He chuckles. “And he’d be terrified of Bess finding out he was anything other than a paragon of morality and virtue.”

Mattie grins. “Yeah, I can imagine.” She stands up. “I should pay him a visit tomorrow night.”

“Please tell me it’s not to beat him up.”

“No. I want him to help us. Think I can convince him?”

Foggy pauses. “Yeah. He probably already smells a rat. Probably wouldn’t take much convincing.”

“Good.” _I hope to God you’re right._

All day, Mattie can feel the storm coming. The humidity hangs in the air, and her skin prickles with electricity. It sets her on edge, and it’s probably a good thing that Karen spends the day at the arraignment of her attackers (accompanied by Elena). Karen calls Mattie to give her the update - the thugs took a plea bargain for minor assault charges. Mattie swallows her rage and tries to tell Karen that justice of a sort has been served.

Karen snorts her disagreement. “They’re not saying a word about Tully. Just plead guilty and get a few months, and nobody connects anything to anyone.”

“We’ll find something, Karen, we’ll just have to work a little harder.”

When the sun goes down and the skies open, Foggy tries to convince Mattie to stay out of the rain. She shrugs and goes out anyway.

She doesn’t mind the rain. Snow, she hates, the way it fills the air and dampens sound. But rain is always moving, always echoing off the hard surfaces of her city, every drop that hits her waking up her skin.

She checks Brett’s apartment, and he’s not home, so she waits on a rooftop at the corner of his street, the one he’d have to pass to come home from the 15th. It’s an hour or so before she hears him coming, the rain pattering off his uniform hat. She slips down the fire escape between buildings, and perches one story up.

“Sergeant,” she says quietly as he passes the alley entrance.

Brett starts, and peers into the alley. She knows exactly when he sees her, because his heartrate nearly doubles, and he pulls his gun from his holster.

“Down from there, now,” he says, and she admires how steady his voice is.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” she says.

“Won’t if you play nice. Down. Now.”

She cocks her head, smiling. “Not yet. We need to talk.”

“Like hell we do.”

“You know I didn’t try to kill Blake.” And Brett hesitates, his breath catching. “And I think you’re starting to wonder if the rest of what they’re saying about me is true either.”

Brett’s gun is wavering, sinking slowly towards the ground. “Clemons told me about the boy you saved from the Russians. Heard other stories, about the lady in the mask helping people. That why you took them out?”

“I didn’t blow the hell out of the Russians. And I didn’t shoot those cops.”

The silence stretches out between them, only interrupted by the sound of the rain.

“Shit,” says Brett, and he holsters the gun and steps into the alley. Mattie smiles and flips off the fire escape, landing in front of him. “Whoa!” he says, stepping back against the wall, his hand on his gun. Mattie holds her hands out. _I’m not going to hurt you._

“I need to know what they’re saying happened at the hospital.”

“What do you think? They’re saying you tried to finish the job on Blake.”

“They tell you to say that?”

“Doesn’t matter what I say. Whatever I heard Blake say, he’s changed his tune now. Saying you did it. Nobody goes near him without his lawyer there, anyway.”

“His lawyer?” 

“Slimeball named Cranston.” _Larry Goddamn Cranston._ Brett must see her lips twist in disgust, because he says, “You know him?”

“By reputation. Tell me about the nurse.”

“Name’s Riley Corcoran. Funny thing, I can’t find Corcoran anywhere on the Metro General staff list. Disappeared as soon as his statement was taken.” _Dead end._ “You know, it’s weird, I thought I recognized him. So I went through a few recent cases. And either Riley Corcoran’s got a hell of a homicidal doppelganger running around, or his real name’s John Healy.”

“The bowling alley killer?”

“Acquitted. Coincidentally, represented by Larry Cranston.”

“You’re sure?”

“Think I’m going to forget a guy who beat somebody to death with a bowling ball?”

Mattie nods in agreement.

“Your turn,” Brett says. “You say that none of this was you? Then who was it?”

And Mattie seizes her chance. “His name’s Wilson Fisk.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Because he doesn’t want you to. That’s what makes him dangerous. Living in the shadows, no-one knowing who he is.”

“Says the lady in the mask.”

“I’m trying to protect this city.”

“Isn’t that my job?”

“Maybe. But you know that Blake and Hoffman were into something dirty, and they’re not the only ones.”

Brett sighs. “I know,” he says sadly. “So what, you got some evidence that I can arrest Fisk on? Preferably that’s actually admissible?”

“Not yet. But there are people working on it. They can get you the evidence you need.”

“Who?”

“Follow the Union Allied case. You’ll find them. And when you do, give them the name Leland Owlsley. He’s Fisk’s money man, he can tie everything together.”

“And if I say no? If I just forget everything you just told me?”

“Then I’ll have to stop him some other way.”

“You know I can’t let you do that.”

Mattie smiles. “Don’t worry. I’m not a killer.”

“Not yet.”

“Not ever.” _Please, God, let it be never._

There’s a pause, and Mattie suspects Brett is staring at her, trying to decide.

“These people, the ones investigating,” he says, “they gonna do this right?”

“Yes. If you help them.” She smiles and steps back. “I trust them. Just like I’m trusting you.” She jumps and grabs the fire escape above her, and effortlessly swings herself up. As she reaches the roof, she hears Brett beneath her.

“Don’t that make me feel better,” he mutters.

Foggy is less than enthusiastic about her coming in soaking wet, but he brightens up considerably when she tells him about Brett.

“So he’s coming to us?” he says as she towels off, standing in the middle of the living room in her underwear.

“Once he figures it out. I couldn’t exactly just tell him ‘Hey, stop by Nelson & Murdock, they’ll tell you everything.’”

He hugs her. “This is good, right? I mean, really good.”

“Yeah, it’s really good. If we get all of us, I mean you, me, Karen, Ben and Brett, if we’re all together on this, we’ve got _multiple_ fronts we can attack Fisk on. We can drag him out into the light, and he won’t have anywhere to hide.”

“And the city will be screaming for him to be arrested.”

“And we can provide all the evidence that the prosecution will need.” She kisses him. “This is it.”

“If Brett comes through.” 

“He’ll come through.”

He leans his forehead against hers, and she breathes in the scent of him. The fingers of one hand are tracing patterns on her bare back, just along her spine.

“Foggy?”

“Yeah?”

“Take me to bed?”

He chuckles. “Thought you’d never ask.”

He walks her backwards into the bedroom, letting her unbutton his shirt as they go. She runs her hands over his skin, pausing at the gash with the stitches.

“It’s OK,” he says when she hesitates. He brushes his fingertips over the still-healing cut on her chest, just below her collarbone. “We kind of match, now.”

“Yeah, it’s like the worst couple’s tattoo ever.” She wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him down onto the bed. He reaches behind her and tries to fumble with the clasps of her sports bra, but gives up and lets her undo it. He kisses down her neck to her breasts, before she pushes him off so she can attack his belt buckle. Once they’re both naked, he nuzzles at her neck.

“Turn over?” he murmurs in her ear.

She grins and turns over under him, pushing up onto her knees, but he puts a hand on her back and gently presses her forward until she’s lying on her stomach. He leans over her to grab a condom, and she hears him unwrap it and roll it on. His left hand slides up her side and her arm as he settles down on top of her, pressing inside her, and he laces his fingers with hers, breathing hot against her neck. The silk sheets tease her skin, and she’s caught, pinned between the cool sheets and Foggy’s living warmth. She grips his fingers between hers and lets herself dissolve in his arms.

In the morning, Foggy puts the news on as he makes breakfast and Mattie takes a shower. She can hear the rote headlines about the Avengers saving small children and puppies, or something like that, when she turns off the water. And then she hears a familiar voice.    


“I’m not very good at this, out, being in public,” comes Wilson Fisk’s voice over the speakers. 

Mattie throws a towel around herself and sprints into the living room. Foggy is standing in front of the laptop, an egg still in his hand. Neither of them speak as they listen in horror to Fisk’s speech, calling out Mattie as a terrorist, declaring himself for all the world to see.

“My name…is Wilson Fisk,” he concludes. “And together, we can make this city a better place.” There’s applause, then the news cuts back to the anchor.

“What the hell just happened?” says Foggy.

Mattie slams the laptop shut.

“He just declared war,” she says. “So I’m going to give him one.”


	9. Burn it All

Mattie tries to concentrate while Pam and the tailor (recommended by Hogarth) discuss what her wedding dress should look like. It had seemed important, weeks ago, when she and Pam had shared a bottle of wine and agreed that they hated shopping at bridal salons, and having the dress made would be cheaper anyway. Pam had sketched out what Mattie had described, and now she’s talking the tailor through Mattie’s ideas.

_My name is Wilson Fisk. And together, we can make this city a better place._

Mattie twists her hands around her cane.

The tailor takes her measurements, and they make an appointment to come back and choose from fabric samples, then they’re on the subway back to Midtown.

“What’s wrong?” says Pam.

“Nothing.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure, which is why you haven’t used any sentences with more than three words all morning.”

“Really, I’m fine. Pam.”

Pam shakes her head. “I just shook my head.” Mattie stands up. “You’ve got one more stop.”

“I’ll walk the rest. Thanks, Pam. I’m sorry I’m…”

“Yeah. Hey, you’re still not the worst bride I’ve been a bridesmaid for.”

Mattie smiles, and leans down, letting Pam brush her cheek against hers, kissing the air next to her ear.

Father Lantom’s church is between the last two subway stops on Mattie’s way to the office, and Foggy isn’t expecting her for a little while. She waits on the bench outside, telling herself that she should just get up and go to work. But she stays, and Father Lantom finds her there, and brings her inside for a latte.

“Do you believe in the Devil, Father?”

Father Lantom tells her about looking true evil in the face, years ago, in Rwanda.

“What if you could have stopped him from ever hurting anyone again?” she says.

“Stopped him how?”

And she can’t tell him, because she doesn’t know what the answer is, what she’s truly willing to do to stop the Devil.

_Kid, in war, people die._

She’s surprised to hear Karen in the office as she climbs the stairs.

“So, I’ve got the connection between Tully and Westmeyer-Holt. Tully _did_ hire them as contractors -“

“That’s great,” says Foggy.

“But not very helpful unless we can get a hold of Tully. But there’s another thing -“

“Shouldn’t you be at home?” says Mattie as she opens the door. Karen is sitting at her desk, her leg stretched out awkwardly in front of her.

“I…got bored staring at my apartment walls. That, and I wanted to show you two some of what I dug up this morning.” Karen slaps something paper down on her desk. “This is the big one.”

“She’s got the _Bulletin_ from this morning. The one with Wilson Fisk all over it.”

“Yeah, ‘A Better Tomorrow,’” Karen says dismissively. “But look at _this_ guy.” She puts her finger on the paper.

“That’s…that’s the guy from Confed Global who tried to hire us,” Foggy says.

“Yeah. So I checked Wilson Fisk’s FCC filings - most of his reported income is from…”

“Confederated Global Investments,” finishes Mattie.

“He’s the King of Diamonds,” says Karen triumphantly. “I mean, he has to be. It makes sense.”

“Did you tell Ben this?”

Karen sighs. “He says that his editor thinks Fisk is the Second Coming, and all they want to print are sob stories about the poor little orphan from Hell’s Kitchen,” she says, her voice dripping with disdain. Mattie grits her teeth. “But don’t worry. There’s something, I _know_ there is. We’ll find it.”

Mattie almost missed the sound of Brett Mahoney coming up the stairs, and Karen and Foggy jump when he knocks on the open door.

“‘M I interrupting?” Brett says.

“Something we can help you with, officer?” says Foggy.

“Brett?” says Mattie.

“Yeah. Hey.”

“Hey. Have you met our office manager, Karen Page?”

“Uh. Yeah. Briefly,” Brett says awkwardly. He comes into the office and offers Karen his hand. “Brett Mahoney.”

“I remember you,” says Karen.

“Right. Yeah. OK.”

There’s an awkward silence.

“…Can I get you a coffee?” Karen offers, grabbing her crutches.

“Yeah, sure -“ Brett starts, but Foggy cuts him off with a shake of his head. “Maybe not?”

“What?” Karen says, turning her head to Foggy.

“We appreciate the effort -“ Foggy says.

“We really didn’t want to be rude -“ says Mattie at the same time.

“But I think endangering an officer of the law is a criminal offence,” says Foggy.

“You don’t like my coffee?” Karen says.

Foggy makes an awkward noise. Mattie grimaces.

“No, I hate it,” Foggy says apologetically.

“Are you seriously insulting a woman’s coffee?” says Brett. “Murdock, how is this guy keeping you?”

“He’s really good in bed,” says Mattie.

“That? I didn’t need to know.”

That breaks the tension a little as Brett laughs.

“So what brings you here, Brett?” Mattie says.

“Had a weird conversation last night. A little bird told me that you were investigating this Fisk guy.”

“That little bird happen to be a reporter for the _Bulletin_?”

“Nope. Little bird in a mask.”

Even though both Mattie and Foggy knew the answer, that statement still manages to electrify the air, filling the silence.

“I think this is the sort of conversation we should have when we’re all sitting down,” says Foggy.

“Yeah, me too,” says Mattie.

They all settle into the conference room (sans coffee), and Brett gives his version of his conversation with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Halfway through, Karen uses the conference phone to call Ben, and he listens as Brett goes over the whole thing again.

“Ben?” Karen says. “What do you say?”

“I think…” comes Ben’s voice, “Ellison will never print any of this without corroboration.”

“What? Ben, you heard -“

“Hearsay,” Mattie says.

“But Brett _heard_ Blake say -“

“Blake changed his story, now that his slimeball lawyer got to him,” says Brett.

“Yeah, I bet Blake’s bank account is pretty heavy right now,” says Foggy. “What is the going rate for covering up your own attempted murder?”

“Well, what about the Union Allied money?” says Karen. “Is there a way we can tie it directly to Fisk?”

“Maybe,” says Brett. “The girl in the mask said Fisk’s money man is Leland Owlsley -“

“The Wall Street guy?” says Ben.

“Uh, yeah? Anyway, she said he can tie everything together.”

“Owlsley’s been surrounded by Fisk’s security since the press conference,” says Ben. “Same goes with, uh, James Wesley?”

“The guy who tried to hire us to defend Healy,” says Foggy.

“Who just tried to kill Blake,” says Brett. “Three guesses who hired him.”

“So we find Healy,” says Karen. “Get _him_ to testify against Fisk.”

Brett sighs and pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and lays it on the table.

“Last known address of John Healy,” he says. 

“Great, let’s go -“ Karen starts, reaching for it. Brett puts his hand over it.

“It’s not for you. _I’ll_ go and see if I can find him.”

“That’s ridiculous -“

“You’re on crutches.”

“I can still help. You want to go after him, you take me with you, so when are we going?”

“Karen -“ says Mattie.

“No, I’m not helpless, and if this is the key to stopping Fisk, then we do it.”

There’s a slight shift as Foggy and Brett turn to look at each other.

“You’re not going to win this one,” Foggy says.

“Yeah, I can see that,” says Brett. “Shift ends at four, I’ll swing by and pick you up here. Speaking of which, I gotta get back. Ben, good to meet you.”

“You too,” says Ben.

“Murdock. Nelson.” Brett nods at each of them, and walks out of the office.

Ben signs off the call, leaving the staff of Nelson & Murdock in the quiet conference room.

“OK, just in case the Healy thread doesn’t pan out, we should have another plan,” says Mattie.

“Like what?” says Foggy.

“Follow the money. Westmeyer-Holt to Confed to Fisk. If we can make that connection, we can prove that Fisk is involved in forcing Elena’s neighbors out of their apartments.”

“There’s one more angle,” says Karen. “I mean, no-one had heard of Fisk before this morning, which means he’s spent a _lot_ of time and effort hiding from the spotlight. You don’t get this kind of money without leaving some sort of a trail.”

“OK. Karen, you work that angle, me and Foggy will work on the tenements.”

The tenements takes them nowhere. Marci tells them that Tully is luxuriating on a private island he purchased with the proceeds of his sale of his properties to Fisk. No extradition treaty, no chance of turning Tully on Fisk. And not chance of pinning anything on Fisk, since the deal is dated for this morning. Elena arrives just before Brett is supposed to come by, and tells them that Fisk has doubled his offer for her and her neighbors to vacate. She doesn’t take much convincing to decide to stay and fight for her home, and while Mattie can respect her determination, she can’t ignore the gnawing fear growing in her stomach.

“Fisk wants the tenements, he’s not going to stop until he gets them,” she says after Elena has left.

“Well, so what?” says Karen. “We’re just supposed to roll over?”

“Fisk is public on this,” says Foggy. “If we tie him up with an injunction, maybe we find something in the deposition that we -“

“Oh, come on, Foggy, you think we’re going to trip this guy up with a deposition?” _Vladimir singing in Russian before the gunfire cut him off forever. “Mr Fisk sends his regards.”_ “After everything that’s happened, you don’t get who we’re dealing with?”

The nascent argument is interrupted by Brett’s arrival.

“Everything OK?” he says. It’s probably the same tone he uses when he’s eyeballing potential perps.

“Fine,” snaps Karen.

“You ready to go?”

Karen sighs. “Yeah.” She pulls herself up onto her crutches. “We can’t let him get away with this,” she says.

“I know,” says Mattie.

“So what are we going to do?” says Foggy.

Mattie sighs. “Basic tenet of both law and war: know your enemy.”

“Thank you, Sun Tzu. What does that mean?”

“It means…there were three people standing with Fisk when he addressed the city. His man from Confed Global, Owlsley, and a woman. One the press said he seemed close to.”

“Vanessa Marianna,” says Brett. “She works at Scene Contempo Gallery on the West side.” He shrugs, presumably in response to a look from Karen. “Hey, I got some downtime this afternoon. Read a lot of articles.”

“Right. Well, you two go after Healy, and I’m going to see about investing in some art.” 

Brett nods, and he and Karen leave. Mattie goes to her office to grab her blazer.

“You know,” Foggy says, “these days, it’s kind of weird to see Brett out of uniform.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she says, buttoning the jacket.

“So what do I do?”

“Keep digging. But - do it quietly. Stay under the radar.” She puts her hand on his cheek. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“You kind of don’t have a leg to stand on about that.”

“Don’t care.”

So she leaves Foggy to the scintillating, and definitely-not-risking-bodily-harm, research, and takes a cab to the West side.

Mattie discovers the following about Vanessa Marianna:

She’s Israeli. Her accent gives it away.

She’s a romantic. When Mattie tells her that she’s looking for a wedding present for her fiance, Vanessa is genuinely enthusiastic at the prospect, telling her, “there’s something very intimate in experiencing art through someone else’s eyes.”

She truly loves art. She talks about it with passion, enjoying describing a painting to Mattie, encouraging her to keep an open mind.

She’s in love with Wilson Fisk.

Fisk walks in as Mattie is talking with Vanessa, and Vanessa’s body changes instantly, giving all the signs of attraction. Her affection seeps through her voice, even as she chastises him for giving Mattie the “better tomorrow” speech (which he believes, he _actually believes_ ), and she and Fisk move easily in one another’s space.

And Fisk loves her, too.

Mattie’s nearly shaking as she flees, saying she has to “consider the cost.” She walks across town, trying to clear her head, and her feet take her to the church. She spills her turmoil to Father Lantom.

“I don’t believe you went to see this woman for insight into how to kill a man,” Father Lantom says. “I think, maybe you went looking for a reason not to.”

Mattie leaves with more questions than answers.

Foggy is waiting for her at home, and tells her that Karen called. John Healy was not at his last known address, so that’s another dead end.

“But, I have a present for you,” he says.

“Please say it involves alcohol.”

“Nope. Although, it does have a strong association with alcohol.” He pulls out a paper-wrapped rectangle about the size of a laptop from his messenger bag and places it in her hands. “Open it.” She does. It’s heavy and metal, and she can feel letters under her fingers. “It’s the dream, kitten. Just like the one I drew on the napkin that you couldn’t feel.”

She runs her fingers over the letters. 

_Nelson & Murdock. Attorneys at Law._

“It’s a little small, isn’t it?” she says with a grin.

“Building regulations.”

Mattie’s smiling around the lump in her throat.

“It’s perfect, Foggy,” she says.

He reaches out and runs his fingers through her hair.

“We’re going to make a difference. I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes…a lot of the time. But we are, with the power of the law.”

“OK.”

He kisses her temple. “Dragged me into this rinky-dink firm. And I’ll never be able to thank you enough for it.”

She turns her head and kisses him, then puts the sign down so she can climb onto his lap.

“Best damn avocados,” she murmurs.

Mattie’s phone wakes them up just before dawn, chirping Karen’s name.

“Karen? What time is it?” Mattie mumbles.

“It’s Elena. She’s in the hospital.”

“What? What happened?”

“There was a fire - the building - I’m not really sure, but I think the whole building’s gone.”

“Oh - oh - my God. Are you with her?”

“Yeah, she’s in pretty bad shape.”

“We’re on our way.”

“No, can you - can you stop by the building, see what they’re saying the damage is? She wants to know.”

“Yeah, of course.” Karen hangs up, and Mattie squeezes the phone in her hand.

_This can’t be happening._

It is happening. The building stinks of smoke and chemicals and ash, and Mattie can feel the heat radiating off the site. She overhears the firefighters declaring it a lost cause, nothing structurally salvageable. The whole thing will have to be torn down.

_Wilson Fisk gets his condos._

She can hear the Fire Marshal gathering statements. Casualty numbers. Evidence in case of arson, concluding that there is no sign of accelerants. Determining that the fire started in a kitchen on the ground floor.

“Looks like a broken gas line leaked, and with all the candles in the building, the whole thing just went up,” says one firefighter.

_Amazing timing, if it’s true._

“Weirdest fire I’ve ever seen, though,” another says. “I mean, for the first few hours, it just wouldn’t respond to anything - not hoses, not extinguishers. And then once we got one area under control, we’d move on to the next, and the one we’d gotten under control would be back up in flames. Even with extinguishers all over the place. It was like the thing was fighting back.”

Mattie frowns as Foggy leads her away.

As they walk into Metro General, Mattie mutters, “I’m really getting sick of this place.”

“Yeah, me too,” he says.

Elena smells like smoke. Mattie can hear mucus rattling in her lungs, and smell the pure oxygen being fed to her from the tube in her nose.

“Señor Foggy, Señorita Murdock, you see the building?” Elena croaks.

Foggy nods.

“Yes, we did,” Mattie says.

“We’re really sorry, Mrs C,” says Foggy. “But it doesn’t look like there’s much left.”

Elena makes a pained noise, then coughs horribly. Karen hurriedly gives her a glass of water, before pulling Mattie and Foggy into the waiting area, leaning on her crutches.

“What’s the prognosis?” Mattie says.

“We’re just waiting for her to get a chest x-ray. They’re worried about lung damage from the smoke inhalation,” Karen says.

“We’re going to have to find her a place to stay,” Foggy says.

“She can stay with me. I have a guest room now.”

“Thanks, Karen,” says Mattie.

“How many people?” says Karen.

“Twenty-three being treated for smoke inhalation and burns, according to the Fire Marshal,” says Mattie. “Two dead.”

“Oh, my God.”

“One had a pre-existing respiratory problem, the other…didn’t make it out in time.”

There’s a smack as Foggy hits the side of his fist against the wall. “You know, the night of the bombing? I remember thinking that the whole place was ready to go up in flames. All those candles because of the power outages, no water in some of the apartments. Tully _let_ this happen.”

“Tully’s not the one who did this,” says Mattie.

“Wait, what are you saying?” says Karen.

“You think it was a coincidence? Elena decides to stay and fight, to rally what’s left of her neighbors, and this happens.”

“You think Fisk had something to do with this,” says Karen.

“Speak of the devil,” says Foggy.

“Fisk is on the TV again,” says Karen.

Mattie refocuses on the sound of the TV

“I only recently took possession of the building,” Fisk is saying.

“How do you respond to reports that you knew the tenement was unsafe?” asks a reporter.

“That is accurate. That’s why we offered a substantial sum to all the remaining residents to help them relocate. We should never let good people get swallowed up by this city. I mourn the passing of Mr Ramirez and Mrs Orozco. Didn’t have to happen…”

“Jesus he almost sounds like he means it,” says Karen.

“I think he does,” says Mattie.

Karen scoffs. “And he calls the woman in the mask a psycho? I hope they trace what happened right to his doorstep.”

“He’d never expose himself like that,” says Mattie darkly.

“Plus, half the force is probably in his pocket,” says Foggy.

“Well, then, let’s pray the Mask gets her hands on him,” says Karen. “Knocks his goddamn head off.”

And the devil uncurls enough in Mattie’s chest to tell her that it agrees.

“Never been much for praying,” says Foggy. “So let’s try to do what we said we’d do. Let’s nail the bastard.”

Mattie tries to smile. “Yeah, let’s do that. But somebody should stay with Elena. How long did they say it would be before they could x-ray her?”

“It’s probably going to be a few hours,” says Karen.

“OK, let’s take it in turns,” says Mattie. “I’ll stay for now, you two go to work. I’ll let you know when Elena gets her x-ray, and you guys keep me updated. OK?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” says Foggy.

“Yeah. Oh, uh, how did it go with that, um, Vanessa woman?” says Karen as Foggy walks away.

“Oh. I didn’t get what I needed,” says Mattie.

She takes her seat by Elena’s bedside, and tries to look reassuring. 

“Where did Señorita Page and Señor Foggy go?” Elena asks in Spanish.

“They’re going to work,” Mattie responds in the same language. “We’re still working on your case, even if there isn’t an apartment to save anymore.”

“Señorita Page said you were trying to connect a construction company to the men who attacked her.”

“That’s right. It’s a little bigger than that, but that’s where we’re starting.” Mattie swallows. “Elena, did you see anything strange last night, before the fire? Or even while it was happening?”

“It was…” Elena coughs badly, phlegm crackling. Mattie gives her the glass of water, and she drinks thankfully. “It was like the night of the bombings. Very confused. Everyone was afraid, even worse this time, I think.”

“I can understand that.”

“There was…one thing. A girl, about your age. I passed her in the hallway during the fire. She wasn’t trying to get out, she was just standing there.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“No, I’d never seen her before. But she looked strange, she didn’t look afraid at all. She looked like she was enjoying it.”

“Anything else about her?”

“She had…” Elena waves her hand over her face. “White makeup, all down the side of her face. Just the one side. And she was wearing a leather jacket, I think.”

“Did you see her come out of the building?”

“No, but it was all very confused outside.”

Mattie nods. “Thank you, Elena.” She reaches out, and finds Elena’s hand on the bed, and squeezes.

Bess Mahoney stops by around lunch, and they chat for a little while. She tells Elena to let her know if she needs anything. Bess pulls Mattie aside.

“Thank you for looking out for her,” Bess says.

“It’s what we do,” says Mattie.

Elena has her x-ray shortly after, and then she’s released with a prescription for an inhaler and an appointment to come back in a week for a follow-up. Mattie takes her back to the office with assurances that they will take care of her until she gets back up on her feet.

“Is Karen here?” she asks as she settles Elena into the conference room.

“She went to the county clerk’s office,” says Foggy, setting a mug of tea down in front of Elena. “Thought she might be able to dig up something on Fisk.”

Mattie sighs and runs her hand over her face. “What’s she going to find that can help us?” she says bitterly.

“I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot, right?”

Mattie tries to give Elena a reassuring smile as she and Foggy leave the conference room.

“No luck on the Confed Global angle, either,” Foggy continues. “It’s looking more and more like Owlsley’s the one who can connect those.”

“And he’s behind layers of security.” Mattie throws herself in to the chair opposite Foggy’s desk. “Can I just go beat up Larry Cranston and get him to have Blake flip on Fisk?” She picks up one of the plastic dinosaurs on his desk, and starts fiddling with it. She’s the only one Foggy lets touch his dinosaurs.

“Would that work?”

“Probably not, but…I mean, any excuse I get to punch Larry in the face…”

“Yeah, no jury would ever convict you for that. They’d just have to see his very punchable face.”

They laugh, but there’s little humour in the room.

“Elena did say something in the hospital,” Mattie says, putting down the dinosaur. “She saw someone in the building during the fire. A girl, white makeup down her face.”

“I’m assuming not one of her neighbors?”

“She said she’d never seen her before. But this girl wasn’t trying to get out of the building. Elena said she looked like she was enjoying it.”

“OK…not exactly incriminating.”

“I heard one of the firefighters saying that the fire was behaving weirdly. Like it was fighting back.”

“You think this girl had something to do with it?” Mattie shrugs. “Wait, you think she was _controlling_ it? Like…gifted?”

“It’s possible.”

“Anything’s possible, but doesn’t mean it’s necessarily likely.”

Mattie sighs. “You got any better ideas?”

“No.”

For want of a better lead, Mattie finds the SHIELD files online and sifts through the Index to see if she can find anything on pyrokinesis. It _is_ a power that exists; there are two pyrokinetics on the Index, but both of them are male.

Brett knocks on the door when his shift ends at four.

“Heard about the tenement,” he says to Foggy as he opens the door. “Hose monkeys have decided it was an accident. Report’s there.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Hell of a coincidence,” says Brett. 

“That’s what I said,” says Mattie.

Brett lets out a puff of air. “I’m still in if you guys are. Even if we can’t pin this on him…it’s not right.”

_Brett Mahoney: Lawful Good._

“We’re in,” Mattie says.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” says Foggy. “I just do what she tells me to.”

There’s a clatter behind Brett, and Karen is shoving the door open with one of her crutches. There’s some swearing from both Brett and Karen as he helps her through the door.

“Good, everyone’s here. Look - look what I found.” She struggles with her purse, until Brett takes it from her so she can rummage through it. She pulls out her phone, and swipes through it until she finds what she’s looking for, holding it up for everyone to see.

“It’s a marriage certificate,” Foggy says. “Marlene Fisk and Martin Waller.”

“Marlene Fisk, is that -“ Mattie starts.

“Fisk’s mother,” says Brett.

“Supposed to have died when Fisk was thirteen,” says Karen triumphantly. “Which would be in 1972. But…”

“This is dated from 1974,” says Foggy. “Where did you find this?”

“It was misfiled in the county clerk’s office. Probably why Fisk didn’t get it sucked into a black hole. But I checked the records after that for Marlene _Waller_ , and _she_ divorced Martin Waller in 1977 and remarried again in 1980 to Arthur Vistain. And there’s a current address for Marlene _Vistain_.”

“She’s still alive?” says Mattie.

“Yeah, she’s living at a care facility upstate. St Benezet’s, it’s about a two-hour drive.”

Foggy gives a long exhale.

“Good work, Karen,” he says.

“It’s not much,” says Mattie.

“No, but it proves that Fisk is lying,” Karen says.

“Might be enough to get people looking at him more closely,” says Brett.

“We should see what Marlene Vistain has to say about him,” says Karen.

“No, Karen, Fisk could have people watching,” says Mattie.

“And you’ve got Elena staying with you,” says Foggy.

“I’ll go,” says Brett. “I’ll come up with some reason to ask questions around there. Old white people love cops.”

“You shouldn’t go alone. I’ll go with you,” says Mattie.

“No offense, Murdock, but you’re not exactly inconspicuous. And before you say anything, Karen, neither are you.”

“So… _I’m_ going with you?” says Foggy.

“Don’t take it personal, you’re just not as hot as either of them.”

“How progressive of you, Brett,” says Mattie sarcastically.

“Also, he has four working limbs.”

“Right. OK.” Mattie can hear Foggy’s heart pounding. “So, what, go now?”

“Nah, not tonight, I got a date.”

“Seriously?”

“I date,” says Brett with finality. “Tomorrow? I’m off at the same time, and I can book a Zipcar.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“We should tell Ben about this,” says Mattie.

“Already did. Called him on the way here. He said, and I quote, ‘Keep me posted if you find a story,’” says Karen.

“We could bring him along,” says Foggy.

“I think…he’s got a lot on his plate right now. Probably best just to let him know if we find anything.”

Elena breaks up the meeting at that point by emerging from the conference room, sleepy and coughing. Karen takes her home, and Brett leaves for his date (“He wasn’t lying about that, Foggy.”). Mattie and Foggy have dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, mostly in awkward silence that’s broken by Foggy saying, “You’re going after the ones who burnt down her building?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“Good. Give ‘em hell.”

He means it.

There isn’t much left of the building, but it isn’t the building that Mattie is interested in. She glides along the rooftops nearby, listening to the people in the neighboring buildings and passing through the alleys. Notably, the adjacent buildings are remarkably undamaged, and many of the conversations inside are about how lucky they were.

She picks her first target from an alley across the street from Elena’s building. She can smell the rot in the junkie’s teeth from six stories above, and she lands gracefully between him and the mouth of the alley. He tries to run, but she’s faster, swinging him around with his arm locked behind him.

“You shoot up here every night?” she whispers. He nods. “You see the fire last night?” Nod. “You see a girl with white makeup on one side of her face?” There’s a hesitation, then another nod. “I’m going to let go of you, and you’re going to tell me about her.”

The junkie crumples to the ground as soon as she lets go of him.

“She’s in here, she’s in here…” he mumbles. “Pier 81.”

“What do you mean? Have you seen her before?”

“Yes. No. Saw both of her.”

_Great._

“Do you know where I can find her?”

And it’s remarkable, how the question seems to snap him into focus. “Pier 81. You can find her in a warehouse at Pier 81.”

That’s…surprisingly specific and helpful. Mattie lets him go, and decides to find some corroboration. There’s a homeless man curled on the stoop of one of the nearby buildings, and when she wakes him up, he’s terrified, but gives her the same information. She can find the girl with the white makeup at Pier 81. Nobody seems to know her name.

She can’t hear anyone inside the warehouse at Pier 81, so she kicks the door down. Inside, she finds a paper-covered table. When she runs her bare fingertips over it, she finds blueprints, maps, and the title “Hell’s Kitchen Re-Development Project.”

_Wilson Fisk’s Better Tomorrow._

A noise startles her, and it’s been a long time since anything has managed to startle her like that. And a man is standing across the room from her, and she recognizes the heartbeat from the docks. The one Stick called Nobu.

“I didn’t come here for you,” she says.

“But I am the one you have found,” he says with a heavy Japanese accent.

Stick once told her that every battle only truly takes place in the mind. Before a single strike is thrown, before a single blade is unsheathed, the fighters know how the duel will end. When Mattie unholsters her batons, she knows she’s going to die.

She’d promised Foggy she’d always come back.

She fights for her life, fights to keep her promise, fights the inevitable as Nobu tears her apart, leaving trails of blood in his wake. And, in the end, fate intervenes, letting a falling spark ignite the gasoline on Nobu’s robe, sending him up in flames. The fire is small at first, and he jumps away from the puddle of gasoline, starting to tear at his robe, when Mattie hears a familiar voice say, “let him burn.”

The fire explodes into a conflagration, engulfing Nobu, and Mattie hears his strange heartbeat stop.

She doesn’t know how many cuts she has, how much blood she’s losing. There are four people in the room with her, three men and a woman. She recognizes Wilson Fisk and James Wesley.

“Thank you, Mary,” Fisk says. “And you as well. Nobu was becoming an issue. I appreciate you…removing him from concern.”

Mattie laughs, harsh from the smoke. “You wanted me to do this.”

“In a perfect world, you would have taken each other out, but…it isn’t a perfect world, is it? Not yet. To be honest…it took longer than I expected. Mary was very careful to leave the trail for you. Just a few suggestions…in the right ears.” The woman next to Fisk laughs.

Fisk admits to having the tenement burned down, just to draw Mattie out. Mattie staggers to her feet.

“I’m going to kill you,” she says, spitting blood with the words.

Fisk spreads his arms. “Take your shot.”

Every battle takes place in the mind, but Mattie’s only listening to the devil now. She attacks, and Fisk bats her around like a kitten. She might as well be hitting the wall, for all the damage she can do. She desperately grabs up Nobu’s _kyoketsu-shoge_ , managing to slash Fisk across the chest, but the blade that sliced her flesh so easily can’t penetrate his suit. _Armor_. Fisk flings her across the room with a backhand, breaking the table under her weight. He drags her up by the front of her shirt just to slam his fist across her face. She feels her nose break, but it seems like the least of her concerns. Fisk drags her to Nobu’s smoking corpse, slamming her against the wall between the windows.

“It’s disappointing,” he says, letting her slide to the floor. He steps back. “Mary.”

Mattie can feel the heat around Nobu’s body rising and moving towards her, and she realizes that Fisk intends to burn her like he did Nobu. Her radar locates one of Nobu’s tiny _bo shrunken_ just under the window to her right, and she lunges for it, rolling to her knees and throwing it at Mary. Mary gasps, and the dart stops midair, but the fire subsides when she’s distracted, and Mattie throws herself out the window into the river below as she hears gunshots behind her.

_Get home. You promised. Move. You can’t stop. He’s waiting. You promised._

She’s dizzy from blood loss as she drags herself out of the river and through the shadows of Hell’s Kitchen. She thinks she blacks out a few times, but she keeps moving.

_You promised him. You promised him you’d always come home._

The fire escape on the building next to theirs is slippery, and all Mattie can smell is blood and all she can hear is the weakening beat of her heart. She should worry about being followed, she thinks as she pulls herself onto the roof, but she can’t remember why.

She staggers onto her own rooftop, and can barely get a grip on the doorknob, and then she’s stumbling down the steps, and _Foggy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…_

She feels his arms around her, and she lets her body go, collapsing as she grips his shirt. She’s aware of falling, that she’s now on the floor, and she manages to gasp out, “Call Claire” before she passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, "hose monkeys" is a Brooklyn Nine-Nine reference. Brett is keeping up that universe's noble tradition of NYPD-FDNY rivalry.


	10. The Breaking Point

_Breathe._

_Don’t panic._

_Call Claire. Follow her instructions._

_Put pressure on the worst wounds._

_Don’t cry._

_Get her off the floor._

_Don’t gag on the smell of blood._

_Clean towels. Clean_ anything. _Switch them out when they’re soaked through._

_Don’t throw up._

_Talk to her, let her know you’re there._

_Don’t panic._

_Don’t throw up._

_Don’t cry._

_Don’t let her die._

Claire follows Foggy’s instructions to the roof door, and runs down the stairs carrying her nursing bag. Mattie’s pale under the blood, but she’s still breathing. Claire takes over, ordering Foggy to hold this and put pressure on that, and this is better, having someone else in charge, someone who knows what they’re doing. She cuts off Mattie’s shirt and sports bra, and Foggy knows Mattie’s going to complain about how expensive sports bras are. He pulls off Mattie’s boots and pants. When Claire starts stitching the wound on Mattie’s back, Foggy looks away in disgust.

“You can’t throw up yet,” Claire says. “You can throw up after I’m finished with the big ones.”

Foggy nods and presses down on the wound on Mattie’s side, holding her up so Claire can work. Mattie’s out cold, nearly naked on the couch, and shouldn’t he keep her warm? Claire’s efficient, and soon enough she’s finished with the big ones, and Foggy stumbles into the bathroom to throw up, leaving bloody handprints on the toilet.

When he comes out, Claire has Mattie’s face in her hands and her thumbs braced on Mattie’s nose. There’s a horrible sound as she sets the break, and Foggy runs back to the bathroom.

“Is she…” he says as he comes out again.

“She’ll live,” Claire says, pressing butterfly strips along the smallest cuts. She nods at a small bottle of pills on the floor next to her bag. “Those are for her. Antibiotics. One every six hours. Can’t imagine whoever did this to her bothered to sterilize the knife. You got a blanket?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Keep her warm, and call 911 if she starts going into shock.” She stands up, apparently satisfied, and looks down at her work. “Jesus, what happened?”

“I don’t know. She was…I don’t know. This shouldn’t have happened.” Foggy goes to the kitchen and fills a mixing bowl with warm water. Claire watches him as he dips a towel into the water and starts sponging the blood off Mattie’s skin. _This was always going to happen. It was just a question of when._

Claire lets herself out with a quiet “Call me if you need me.”

He dries Mattie’s skin as he works: her face, then one arm, then the other, then each of her legs, then her chest and stomach. He traces around the wounds and the dressings, and when he’s done, he drapes a blanket over her. He feels drained, as if half the blood on the floor was his instead of Mattie’s. He should go to sleep, but he can’t stand the thought of being in the other room. What if he misses something, and she dies in her sleep? He could sleep in one of the armchairs, they’re comfortable enough. But she needs him close, she needs to know he’s there, she needs to feel him next to her.

He pulls a cushion off one of the armchairs and puts it on the floor, sitting on it with his back against the couch. He takes Mattie’s hand and drapes it over his shoulder so that it’s resting on his chest, and holds it there, her hand on his heart. He leans his head back against her body. The curtains are shut, but he can see a sliver of purple light from the billboard cutting across the ceiling, flickering in the night, blurring when he lets the tears finally come. He listens to Mattie’s breathing, harsh through her broken nose, concentrates on that, because it means she’s alive.

He wakes up when her hand moves. He feels her fingertips sliding up to his throat, gently pressing against his pulse. _It’s me, kitten. Just me._ He can’t imagine how much her senses must be screaming at her if she needs to feel his pulse to recognize him. Then he hears her suck in a ragged breath, and he turns his head to see her open her eyes. She turns her head quickly, the way she does when she’s trying to process too much information, and her hand drops away from his throat to push down the blanket.

“Hey, hey, be careful,” he says, gently keeping her hand away from the dressing on her stomach. “Don’t do that.”

“Foggy?”

 “Yeah. I’m here. Don’t move, OK?”

She swallows, her eyebrows furrowed.

“There something to drink?” she says, her voice hoarse.

“Yeah, I’ll get you some water.” He fills a glass, and hears a groan behind him. He turns around, and _of course_ she’s already hauling herself upright, gripping the back of the sofa with one hand. “Hey, hey, hey…” He rushes over, and pushes cushions down behind her to support her back, pulling the blanket up over her chest. He holds out the glass of water to her, and she drinks, the water turning rust-colored with the blood from her mouth. He has to look away, or he’ll start crying again.

“What happened?” he asks the wardrobe.

“Fisk,” she says. “And Nobu.”

“Nobu?”

“Yeah, he was one of the Yakuza down at the docks the other night. I think he’s some kind of…ninja.”

“A ninja.”

“I think.”

He looks back at her. She’s finished the water. He takes the glass from her hand.

“It was a trap,” she says bitterly. “I walked right into it. Fisk, he - he knew I’d come after him after he had the tenement burned down. The woman, the one Elena saw, she told them to tell me where to find her, and after everything Fisk had done, I…I went to the warehouse, right where they told me.”

“And Fisk was there.”

“Nobu was. He’s…I don’t know, he’s different. He reminds me of Stick, the way he’s trained. He…most of this…” She gestures at her body. “That was him.”

“Yeah? How’s _he_ looking now?”

“He’s dead. I lit him on fire.” It’s not a boast. It’s barely a whisper. There’s no satisfaction to it.

“Jesus Christ,” Foggy whispers, and then he explodes. “God, it’s enough playing judge and jury? You gotta add executioner to the list?”

“It was an accident,” she says, pleading. “There was gasoline on the floor, and I hit a light above him - I didn’t know -“

“Karen. Karen. Karen…” announces Mattie’s phone from the bedroom. Foggy stares at Mattie, clinging to the blanket around her, before he stalks into the bedroom to pick up her phone. He holds it out to her.

“Answer it,” he says.

She takes it and presses the button.

“Hi, Karen…We’re, we’re still at home…No…It’s…I’m…I just…I got jumped last night…Yeah, Foggy’s taking care of me…No, stay there, Karen, we need you there…Yeah, he is…We’ll call you if we need anything…OK. You too.” She presses the button and puts the phone down next to her.

“So now we’re lying to people we care about,” Foggy says.

“We were lying to her from Day One,” Mattie says quietly.

“Is this easy for you?” he snaps. “Just lying to everyone you meet? Keeping all your secrets? Because, trust me, it’s not for me.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think -“   


“No, you didn’t. You never do. You just keep going until something breaks.” He’s angry now, angry that she’s made him so afraid, and he’s been afraid for months, now.

“Foggy…”

He turns his back and walks away from her, grabbing a hoodie and sweatpants out of the dresser. He brings them to her, and dresses her with curt instructions, covering the wounds until she looks more like a person he can be angry at.

He spends most of the day fuming as she rests. He tries not to look at her, because she _does_ look like a kitten, tiny and damaged and vulnerable, curled under the blanket, but he knows better. He’s known since that first night she went out, but he’s never had to face what she’s capable of. Or what the people she fights are willing to do to her.

She wakes up when his phone goes off.

“Hey, man, so I’m picking up the car at the lot on 9th and 35th in an hour - can you meet me there?” says Brett.

“I…can’t man. Mattie’s in -“ He glances over, and she’s shaking her head.

“You should go,” she says.

“Hang on,” he tells Brett, and covers the phone with his hand. “I’m not leaving you here on your own.”

“I’m not going to die, Foggy,” she says, and he winces. “I’m just going to sleep, OK? This is our chance, so you should go.”

He hesitates, because he doesn’t trust her to not injure herself further, but sitting and staring at the wall hasn’t made for a terribly good day.

“Fine, but you don’t move from that sofa, OK?”

“OK,” she whispers.

“Yeah, Brett, I can meet you there in an hour,” Foggy says into the phone.

“Everything OK?” says Brett.

“Yeah. I’ll tell you in the car.” 

Brett hangs up with an “OK, see you there.”

“What are you going to tell him?” Mattie says.

“What you told Karen. You got jumped,” Foggy says dully. “Gotta toe the party line.”

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t say anything, just goes to shower and change his clothes.

Mattie’s asleep, or at least has her eyes closed, when he leaves. He leaves another glass of water on the floor next to her. She doesn’t move, and he thinks that, objectively, it would be a beautiful image, her pale skin contrasting against her dark hair, red blood, and the dark green of the cushions. It would be beautiful if he didn’t know how it came to be.

Brett honks at him when he reaches the lot, and he gets into the passenger seat.

“So, what’s up?” says Brett as he pulls into traffic on 9th.

“Mattie got jumped last night,” Foggy says.

“Jesus. She report it?”

“No. She says she’s not even sure how many there were, and not like she can describe them.”

“She should still report it. I can stop by when we get back -“

“She doesn’t want to,” snaps Foggy.

Brett drives in silence for a few blocks.

“Was it Fisk’s guys?” he says.

“She doesn’t know. They didn’t say.”

“If they know about her -“

“I know. We’re in deep shit.” Foggy sighs, and resists saying, _they know about her, all right, they just don’t know about Mattie Murdock._

“She OK?”

“No. But…”

“She’s tough.”

“Yeah. Always has been.” Foggy stares out the window as Brett turns onto the ramp to take them through the Lincoln Tunnel.

“You know, Karen was asking about you two, when we went to Healy’s place.”

“Yeah? About what?”

“How long I’ve known you, what I think about you two being together.” Brett taps the wheel as Foggy sighs. “She mentioned Mattie showing up with a black eye the other night.”

“That was -“ Suddenly, everything clicks in Foggy’s head - why Karen’s been mad at him since the bombings. “She thinks I did it.”

“ _Did_ you?”

“Of course not!”

“‘Cause if you did, I will personally kick your stupid ass for hurting that girl. And then I’ll arrest you.”

“If I did, I’d deserve it.”

Brett nods.

Foggy stares out the window, and thinks of the people who do deserve it.

***

Mattie’s woken by a loud knock on the door. It takes her a moment to orient herself - she’s on the couch, there’s a blanket on her, she can hear Karen outside the door. There’s another knock, and then her phone starts ringing Karen’s name on the floor where she’d put it when she lay down.

“Karen?” 

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah.”

“Is Foggy there?”

“He’s gone with Brett to talk to Fisk’s mother.”

“Good. I’m outside your door.”

Mattie debates giving Karen directions to use the roof door, because she’s very tempted to not move off the couch. But getting to the door can’t be too much trouble, can it?

The cut on her back hurts the worst as she pulls herself off the couch. She wishes she had her glasses on, but they’re on the bedside table, and that’s in the opposite direction of where she needs to go. Screw the glasses, then. She drags herself to the door, using a hand on the wall to steady herself, and opens it.

“Jesus,” breathes Karen.

 “Yeah, I’m told it’s quite impressive,” Mattie says dryly.

“What happened?” Karen steps into the hallway and closes the door behind her. Mattie gets lightheaded when she turns to go back into the living room, and Karen wraps an arm around her. Mattie hisses when Karen’s hand presses over the wound on her side, but lets Karen support her to the couch, carrying her crutches in the other hand.

“Got jumped.”

“That’s what you said on the phone. Foggy wasn’t with you?”

“No, I was…just running out.” Lying is tiring. She leans back on the couch.

“And you didn’t go to the hospital?”

“Hate hospitals. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you’re a picture of health.”

Mattie gropes around the floor next to the couch for the glass of water she knows is there. Karen gently takes her hand and puts the glass in it. She sits on the couch next to Mattie as she takes a drink.

“Did Foggy do this to you?” Karen says quietly.

“What?” Mattie’s head snaps up, which hurts, but she’s not sure if she should laugh or not.

“It’s OK, you can tell me.”

“Karen -“

“I know how this goes, OK? You think you’re protecting him, you think if no-one finds out, he’ll stop, but he’s not the one who needs protecting, Mattie. You deserve to be safe.”

“He’s not the one who did this, Karen.”

“I’m not an idiot! I see you, coming in, covered with bruises, and don’t _tell_ me that you walked into a door or fell down the stairs, or -“

Mattie holds up her hand, showing the bruises on her knuckles.

“Trust me, if he was the one who did this, you’d see a lot more bruises on him,” she says. “Not to mention that the guy can’t throw a punch to save his life.”

“How do you even _know_ that?”

“Because I tried to teach him. A long time ago.” Was it a long time ago? Just after graduation. Only just over a year, really.

“I don’t understand,” says Karen truthfully.

“My father was a boxer. I learned a lot, when I was a kid,” Mattie says, delicately evading the details. “I kept it up, after he died. Still do.”

“You’re _boxing_?!”

“It’s not that hard, actually. You just have to find a sparring partner who’s not going to treat you like glass.” Like, say, the criminal element of Hell’s Kitchen.

Karen’s fingers are drumming on the arm of the sofa.

“So, the night I was attacked, what happened to you?” she says.

“My old teacher was in town. We went out, had a…disagreement. It’s not important.”

“ _He_ hit you?”

“Yeah, well, I got him back.”

Karen pauses, breathing through her nose. “And last night?”

Mattie shrugs. “Got jumped.”

Karen nods and catches herself. “OK.” She still sounds skeptical.

“Karen…whatever you’re thinking, Foggy’s never hurt me. Believe me, I’ve known men like that. He’s not one of them.”

Karen reaches over and takes her hands.

“You’ll tell me if you’re being hurt? If you’re ever hurt?”

“Yeah,” Mattie says. “Yeah, I will.”

Karen leans in and wraps her arms around Mattie’s shoulders.

***

St Benezet’s is a converted mansion just outside of Albany. It reeks of old money, from the wrought-iron gates to the molded plaster ceilings to the crackling fireplace at the reception desk. Foggy signs his name as P. Sharpe, and he and Brett wait for the receptionist to be distracted by a phone call before they quietly drift into the hallway. They stop to talk to some of the residents who are sitting in the common areas: “How do you like St Benezet’s? What did you do before you came here? Do you have children? Grandchildren?” Brett casually brings up Marlene Vistain’s name, claiming his grandmother knew her, and they’re told that she keeps to her room in the evenings.

They work their way through the halls in the direction the old gentleman had pointed them, and find her nameplate on a corner room. They stop and look at each other, then Brett shrugs and knocks on the door.

“Come in,” comes a voice from inside.

Foggy has a panicked thought that Fisk might have an entire security detail in his mother’s room, but it’s only one old lady, smiling warmly at them. She has high cheekbones and a beautiful smile, and Foggy can imagine that she must have been a beauty when she was young.

“Is it time?” she says.

“Um, sorry?” says Foggy.

She fumbles with the glasses that hang around her neck, and peers at them.

“Oh, I don’t know _you_ ,” she says.

“Uh, no,” says Foggy. “But, uh, we’re just…”

“Talking to people here,” Brett cuts in, “and someone mentioned you used to live in New York, and we’re from New York, and this guy’s really interested in history, so…”

“Yeah. Huge history buff.”

“Oh,” says Marlene. She glances off to the side, then back to them. “Is it time?”

Foggy and Brett exchange glances. _She’s not all there, is she?_

“No, Mrs Vistain,” says Foggy. “We just wanted to talk to you for a minute. About…life in New York. You know, back in the seventies.”

“Oh…” Marlene smiles. “I’ve heard it’s much nicer there now. Wilson says it’s going to become even better.”

“Yeah, it is.” Foggy sits down on the chair opposite her. Brett hovers by the door. “Did you live there with your husband?”

“Arthur,” she says fondly.

“No, I meant…before Arthur. And Martin.” She nods. “Bill?”

“He tried so hard, but…he drank, you know. I didn’t. Never touched a drop. Not once, no.”

“And Wilson…he’s your son?”

“He’s such a good boy. Comes to see me every weekend. He’s gentle, sweet. Not like his father.”

“What happened to his father?”

A look of…distress crosses her face.

“It wasn’t his fault. His father, he was…Wilson…just wanted him to stop. It wasn’t his fault, what he did.”

“What did he do?” says Brett, on high alert.

“I didn’t want him to…” She draws herself up. “But you protect your children. That’s what you do.”

“Protect them from what?” says Foggy.

“Everyone thought it was Rigoletto. That’s what we wanted them to think. And Wilson…he was just a boy, no one would think he was the one…”

“The one who what?” Foggy has a terrible suspicion forming in his mind.

“He just wanted him to stop. But Bill wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop hurting me.” And Marlene looks him straight in the eye, and Foggy sees through the warm old lady to the steel underneath. “Wilson made him stop.”

Foggy looks over to Brett, whose mouth is hanging open. Brett holds up his hands. He doesn’t know what to do with this either.

Foggy looks back to Marlene, and the steel is gone, she’s all softness again.

“Are you married?” she says conversationally.

“Almost,” Foggy says.

“Thank you for your time, Mrs Vistain,” Brett says hurriedly, and he hustles Foggy out of St Benezet’s to the car.

They’re on the highway before either of them say anything.

“Fisk murdered his father,” Foggy says.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, my God.” Foggy runs his hands through his hair. “He was _twelve_.”

“No way we can convince Reyes to prosecute on it.”

“I know. We need to call Ben.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Foggy pulls out his phone and finds Ben’s contact.

“Urich,” comes Ben’s voice.

“Ben, it’s Foggy. Uh, you know how Karen found that marriage certificate yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we found her. Talked to Fisk’s mother. Seriously, Ben, it’s big, it’s really really big.”

“Foggy -”

“Fisk killed his father when he was twelve. His mother helped cover it up, let everyone think that he’d been killed by a mobster. Rig…what was it?”

“Rigoletto,” says Brett. “Big in the Italian Maggia back in the day.”

“Rigoletto,” says Foggy into the phone. “Ben -“

Ben sighs on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry, Foggy.”

“About what?”

“I’m not…I can’t be involved in this anymore. I wanted to tell you all in person, but nobody was at the office.”

“What do you mean?”

“Karen tell you about my wife?”

“Uh, no?”

“She’s sick. It’s bad. And my benefits won’t cover for her to stay in a hospital, so…I’m taking some time off. Taking her home, going to take care of her. I can’t be running around chasing stories from forty years ago.” There’s a pause. “Look, I left a package for Karen at your office. It’s everything we had on Fisk. It’s yours. You can do whatever you want with it.”

“Ben…”

“Be careful.”

Ben hangs up.

“What was that?” says Brett.

“Ben’s out. He’s taking time off to take care of his wife,” says Foggy.

“Shit.” There’s silence in the car. “What do we do now?”

“Find another way.” Foggy leans his head against the car window.

“I mean, seriously?” says Brett. “I mean, at least give us some warning.”

“I can’t blame him.” Foggy feels exhausted. “It’s what you do, isn’t it? For the person you love.”

Brett sighs. “Yeah, well, that’s what _you’re_ signing up for, not me.” He shakes his head. “I’ve seen some of the crazy shit people are willing to do for love.”

“Like cover up a murder.”

“Yeah. Or kill your own father.”

_Or protect the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen._

“You can’t help loving someone,” Foggy says sadly.

“No. But you can get out before you get dragged down in the shit.”

“Sometimes it’s not that easy.”

“You’re right,” Brett says lightly. “But in the end, people aren’t gonna change.”

***

Mattie’s awake when Foggy comes back in. She hauls herself upright.

“Hey, how’d it go?” she says.

“It was…” His heart is pounding, and not just from climbing the stairs. He takes a deep breath. “We found her,” he says dispassionately. “We talked to her. And she told us that Fisk murdered his father when he was twelve.”

“What? That’s - we can use that.”

“Yeah.”

“You talk to Ben?”

“Ben’s out. His wife is sick, he’s going to take care of her.”

“Oh.”

“Tell me one thing, Mattie.”

“Sure.”

“Do you want to grow old with me?”

“What? Of course, you know I do.”

“Do I?” His voice is shaking, and she feels like someone poured ice water down her spine. “Because I’ve just spent two hours in the car trying to see where this is taking us, and every option ends with me burying you.”

“Foggy, I -“

“No!” he shouts. “No, you don’t get to make excuses, because I have spent _every night_ since you started terrified that you’re never coming back. I had to sit there in the hospital while _bombs_ were going off, thinking that the last thing I’d ever hear from you would be ‘I’m sorry.’ I just spent an entire night thinking you were going to die right there.” Mattie can feel a tear sliding down her cheek as she struggles to get a word in. “And for what? Letting you bring this into our home, letting Stick wreck it? Having you kill some ninja? Lying to our friends, letting them think that _I’m_ the one who’s hurting you?”

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she manages. “I told Karen -“

“There’s a lot you didn’t mean to happen, but stop pretending that things just _happen_ to you. You made a choice.”

“You were there, too.”

“Yeah, and I know why _I_ made it. The law couldn’t help Zoe McLennan, but you could. But you? I’m starting to think it’s not just about justice or any of that shit, you just need something to hit. Maybe you just can’t stop yourself.”

“I don’t want to stop. You said you understood. You _said_ you knew me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know you.”

“And you _know_ why I do it, Foggy. This city needs me in that mask Foggy -”

“No, _I need you_!” He stops himself, and breathes in, deep and ragged. “And I’d do anything for you. But I won’t watch you die.”

He goes into the bedroom, and she hears him pulling out a bag and filling it with clothes.

“Foggy…”

“Don’t,” he says from the bedroom doorway. “Just don’t.”

He goes to the bathroom, and she can hear him sweeping his toothbrush and razor into the bag. He slings the bag over his shoulder as he comes into the living room.

“Foggy, wait,” she pleads.

He leaves without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! We've reached 1500 hits! Thank you, all of you, for reading!


	11. For Love

Foggy doesn’t have a plan. He has a vague idea that he should check into a hotel, or call his sister, or something, but he finds himself sitting at Josie’s bar instead, knocking back whatever the hell is in the bottle she plunked down in front of him. Her glare is a little less cutting than usual, so he must look like shit.

Thank God Josie’s not the chatty sort of bartender. He can’t talk about this, not with anyone.

_Yeah, Mattie Murdock, the love of my life, is the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. And she’s going to get arrested, or disbarred, or killed, and I can’t handle that._

Not a great opening for a conversation. 

By the time he’s listing to one side on his bar stool, he remembers that there is _one_ person he can talk to. It takes him too long to find her number in his phone, he keeps scrolling past it, but he eventually gets through.

“Claire?”

“Hey. What’s up?”

“I need…I need you.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Yes.”

There’s a pause.

“Oh, wait!” he says. “No, I didn’t mean that! I meant…I need to _talk_ to you. You’re the only one who knows. You know. About…our mutual friend. Who likes…extreme sports.” He’s being _very_ clever.

“You can say her name, Foggy.”

“Not right now.”

Claire sighs on the other end of the phone.

“Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”

Claire arrives within fifteen minutes, still wearing her hospital scrubs. She sits next to him, and he kicks the bag on the floor and tells her that he and Mattie had a fight.

“She kick you out?” says Claire.

“No…more like I left.”

Claire nods.

“Is this…like, leaving for good, or just ‘I need to be on my own for a few hours?’” she says.

“I don’t know!” he moans, resting his head on his hands. “I don’t know.”

The next thing he knows, Claire is hauling him to his feet.

“OK, c’mon, you need to sleep this off before you make any big decisions.”

“Nowhere to go,” he mumbles.

“You’re coming with me, now come on.”

He stumbles down the street with his arm around Claire, who steers him into her building and up the stairs. She lets him flop on the couch, and pulls off his shoes before covering him with a blanket. The last thing he’s aware of before he passes out completely is Claire placing a large bowl next to him on the floor, and a bottle of water.

He wakes up to the smell of coffee, and Claire is standing over him like an angel. His head is pounding, and his mouth feels like he spent the night licking the bar. He moans, and hopes it’s piteous rather than pathetic.

“Made you coffee,” Claire says, putting the mug down in front of him.

“You’re a saint, Claire.”

She grins. “No, I’m not.” She settles onto the couch as he sits up. “Too much self-sacrificing for me.”

Foggy chuckles and takes a sip. It’s black and bitter.

“You want sugar or cream?”

“Yeah, a bit of sugar.”

Claire goes to fetch the sugar and a spoon for him. He looks down on the couch, and realizes that there is a bloodstain on the cushion, right where Claire was sitting. He brushes his hand over it. Claire stands in front of him, holding the sugar bowl.

“This hers?” he says.

“Yeah. From the first night. I tried flipping the cushions, but…there was a lot of it.”

Foggy feels like he’s hypnotized, pulling the cushion out and turning it over. On the other side, more than half the surface of the cushion is stained dark brown.

“Jesus,” he breathes. He runs his hand over the stain. _I didn’t want to know._

“Hey, hey,” Claire says softly, and he realizes that he’s got a tear running down his face. “It’s OK. She made it through.” As if he didn’t know. As if they hadn’t just spent the night pulling Mattie through even worse injuries. He looks at Claire, crouched in front of him. “Here,” she says, handing him the sugar bowl. He works on automatic, spooning in the sugar and stirring the coffee, letting her take the sugar bowl and the spoon back to the kitchen. He sips. Better. Claire sits down on the offending cushion. “You want to talk about it?”

“No.” He takes another sip. “Yes.”

“Right. You realize you’re giving me a lot of mixed messages here.” Her big dark eyes stare at him over her coffee cup. “It’s OK, just…tell me what you want to do.”

Foggy nods. “I just…It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time. Whole day, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Taking some time off. I’m actually heading out of town this evening, but let’s worry about that later.”

“OK.”

“So…tell me the long story.”

Foggy sighs and tells her about finding Marlene Vistain, and what they learned about Wilson Fisk, then about Ben and his wife.

“And I was thinking, you know, being there for each other, growing old together, that’s what marriage is about. It’s about having a future together, building a life, and…I can’t have that with her. You know, up until last night - I mean, two nights ago - I kept telling myself that we could. That she’d be fine, that…we could go on like this.” He takes a drink of coffee. “Guess I’m just an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot. You love her.”

“Yeah. But I can’t lose her. I spent that entire night thinking she was going to die, and I…I can’t do it, Claire.”

She puts her hand on his arm.

“It’s OK,” she says. “What you’ve done for her, that’s _way_ above and beyond what anyone could ask of you.”

_Is it, though?_ His life got so weird once he found out about Mattie’s abilities that he wonders what “reasonable” actually looks like. _Do the Avengers’ girlfriends or boyfriends deal with this?_ The only one he knows about it Pepper Potts, and she’s the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, so she probably just hires people to deal with it for her.

Claire says he can stay in her apartment until she gets back, and gives him a spare set of keys. Then she lets him curl up on the couch and try to shut the world out.

His phone rings every so often during the day. He ignores it.

He hears Claire go out some time in the afternoon. She comes back a little over an hour later, and puts a bag of Chinese food down on the table. He moans as he sits up.

“Figured you hadn’t eaten anything today,” she says, and he gratefully accepts a plate of noodles and an egg roll from her. “I went to check up on her,” she says as he eats.

He pauses, the egg roll in his hand. “How is she?”

“She ripped some of her stitches trying to test her movement.”

“Yeah,” he says dully. “That sounds like her.”

“I told her you were here.” She’s looking at him, and he has the uncomfortable thought that Claire can probably tell exactly what he’s thinking. “I told her you need space.”

“Thanks.”

His phone rings. He glances at it, expecting to see Karen’s picture again, but it’s an unknown number. His brow furrows and he takes the call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Franklin Nelson?”

“Yeah, speaking.”

“Hi Mr Nelson, this is Nadine Warner calling from Warner and Xiao?”

“Warner and…”

“We’re representing Caroline Robson in her divorce?”

Ed. Ed the electrician.

“Oh, right,” he says. He can’t deal with this.

“We’ve been trying to get a hold of you or Ms Murdock all day…”

“Yeah, sorry about that, uh,” He sighs. “My partner was in an accident the other night, she’s taking some time off.” More lies. How many has he told for Mattie?

“Well, I’m glad I got a hold of you, then. We’ve got a settlement offer that we’d like Mr Robson to take a look at immediately. Can we fax the papers over to your office?”

_Oh, that’s what fax machines are for._

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “I’ll make sure he gets them.”

“Thanks, Mr Nelson. Tell Ms Murdock that we hope she gets better soon.”

“Thanks.” He hangs up.

“Everything OK?” says Claire.

“Yeah. Just…have to go into the office. You know, for our one actual client.” He pokes at his noodles. “At least she won’t be there.”

Claire puts her hand on his shoulder and pats it awkwardly. “My train’s leaving at six, are you going to be back before I have to leave?”

“Probably not. I’ll probably have to do some work while I’m there.”

“OK, then make sure you take the spare keys with you.”

He does. He makes his way to the office, and he’s not too surprised to see the light on and Karen moving around inside. He pushes the door open, and she stops and stares at him with those big blue eyes of hers.

“I’ve been calling you all day,” she says accusingly.

“Been busy,” he says.

“While Mattie’s still curled up on the couch?”

“We had a fight.”

“Yeah. I heard. Elena went over, brought you guys some stew. She said Mattie looked like she’d been gutted. Metaphorically. Although she looked pretty close to literally, too.”

“Yeah, well, we’re going through a rough patch.”

Karen takes a deep breath.

“Look, I know that I’ve been…” She pauses. “I know that I made some assumptions about you two -“

“You mean the part where you assumed I was hitting her?”

“Yes,” she says, and she has the decency to look ashamed. “And I know now that I was wrong about that, and I am sorry. So, if there is anything I can do that will help the two of you -“

“Really isn’t.”

“OK,” she says quietly. The silence is awkward and deafening. “I talked to Ben today.”

“Did he change his mind?”

“No. But…he did tell me something. You know the benefit that was happening at the Van Lunt building last night?”

“Fisk’s benefit?”

“Yeah. Ben has a source that says that the ‘food poisoning’ that went around was actually spiked drinks. Maybe even fatalities.”

“Someone tried to take Fisk out?”

“Maybe. Ben thinks it’s likely.” She wraps her arms around herself. “What’s scarier is that Fisk has enough pull with the media to bury it. Ben thinks someone at the _Bulletin_ is probably in his pocket.”

“Shit.”

“But Foggy…if Fisk thinks he’s in danger, he’ll just wrap himself up in more and more layers of security. He’ll try to erase anything that can be used against him. We have to act, and fast, or there will be nothing left of Hell’s Kitchen to fight for.”

Foggy looks out the window behind her. _What about it is worth fighting for?_ He sighs.

“You know who we’re dealing with. It won’t be enough.”

“You sound just like Mattie.”

“No. I really don’t.” He walks over to the fax machine and collects the papers there. He glances over at Mattie’s empty office. The whole place feels unbalanced without her.

“I’m going to go home,” says Karen.

“Yeah. Say hi to Elena.”

She nods as she leaves.

Foggy takes the papers into his office and goes over them. It’s a reasonable settlement offer, civilized, in its own way. _This is how relationships die. Papers faxed between lawyers, no mess, no fuss._ Sixteen years of marriage, reduced to paper and ink. He scans the papers and sends Ed the electronic copies, recommending that he take the settlement. He paws at his eyes as he clears his inbox. Every so often, he expects Mattie to appear in the doorway, or sit down in the chair opposite him, picking up one of his dinosaurs. He can’t remember when he first noticed that she plays with his dinosaurs when they’re within reach. Must have been freshman year.

Eventually, Mattie’s ghost chases him out of the office. Claire’s train is long gone, so he’s just going to an empty apartment. He considers going to Josie’s. She won’t judge him for coming in two nights in a row. Well, no more than she already judges him. He steps out onto the sidewalk, and glances at the blank space on the wall where he’d planned to put up the sign.

Mattie had looked so happy when he’d given it to her.

“Mr Nelson,” says a voice, and Foggy turns around to see a black SUV parked at the curb, and standing next to it, James Wesley.

“Can I help you?” Foggy says.

“Yes, I believe you can,” Wesley says, striding towards him. He stops too close, and Foggy’s just about to step back when he feels a jab in his side and all his muscles seizing. He falls to the ground, gasping for air, and Wesley covers his mouth with a damp cloth, and all Foggy can smell is chemicals.

When he wakes up, his head is spinning worse than any hangover. He’s slumped over a table, and he groans as he tries to push himself up, but his arms feel like lead. He slides halfway out of the chair he’s sitting in, and he hears a sigh.

“You might want to take a moment,” says Wesley. Foggy hears the tapping of his shoes against the concrete floor, then Wesley grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him upright. “In the meantime, I thought we could chat.” Wesley sits neatly opposite him, all clean lines and sharp edges, a shark worse than anything Foggy had met at Landman & Zack.

“Make an appointment with my assistant,” Foggy snaps.

“That can be arranged,” says Wesley evenly, and Foggy hears the threat underneath. He coughs, trying to dislodge the chemical coating in his throat. “You know, funny story, after the Union Allied incident, we thought you might be…useful to us. Miss Murdock, well, we could see enough from her transcripts that she’d barely give us the time of day, but you… _She_ clearly convinced _you_ to leave the comfortable life you were building. It’s not surprising, she is quite charismatic, isn’t she? But we always figured that we’d find that magic number that would…entice you to reverse that decision.”

“Don’t talk about her.”

“You made a choice, Mr Nelson. You chose to turn us down, and you chose to pit your…pitiful resources against ours. And that choice has brought you here…on this night, at this particular moment in time. Perhaps that’s the way it was always going to be. Perhaps we’re destined to follow a path none of us can see, only vaguely sense, as it takes our hand, guiding us towards the inevitable.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?”

“No, no. Uh, this is.” Wesley reaches inside his jacket, and places a gun on the table. “Do I have your attention?”

_I’m going to die_ is the first thing that runs through Foggy’s head. The second is, _Mattie would know what to do._ Mattie would probably jump on the table and kick the guy in the head. Mattie could handle this. He can’t.

“Hello, could you, like, nod or something?” says Wesley. Foggy settles for glaring at him. Wesley sighs. “Do you love this city?”

“What?”

“It’s a simple question. Do you love this city?”

“I grew up here.” It’s as much of an answer as he’s willing to give. He doesn’t love it like Mattie does, that deep-in-her-bones love that anchors her here.

“Huh. I’ll be perfectly honest, the situation calls for it. I do not love this city. The crush of the unwashed, garbage stacked on the sidewalk, the air that seems to adhere to your skin, the layer of filth you can never completely wash away.”

“Yeah, we tend not to put that on the tourism websites.” Foggy may not love the city the way Mattie does, but he’s a New Yorker all the same.

“But Mr Fisk loves this city. In a way I never could. There are moments when even I struggle to understand that, but he does, very deeply. Almost, I suspect, as much as he loves his mother.”

_Oh, God._

“Frankly,” Wesley continues, “I was surprised she remembered you. Recent memories for her are fleeting gossamer, often plucked from grasp by the slightest breeze. But you, you left an impression. The big friendly blond man with the long hair, and the man you were with, Mr Urich, I’m assuming?” _He doesn’t know about Brett._ “She disapproves of your hair, by the way. Not to mention signing your name with your biological mother’s surname - did you think we didn’t know about her? My employer - sorry, old habits. Mr Fisk, as I said, loves his mother. He would be extremely…disturbed if he knew you’d found her. Even more so that you’ve been to see her.”

“He doesn’t know.”

“He’s preoccupied with more important matters, so I’ve taken it upon myself to address the situation.”

“And what is the situation?” bites out Foggy. _Go ahead. Gloat. Tell me how you’re going to kill me._ He needs time to figure out how to get himself out of this. The gun on the table…it’s closer to Wesley than it is to him, and he’s slow thanks to the drugs.

“I’d like to offer you a job, Mr Nelson.”

Foggy nearly laughs. “So, after all of this, you’re going to what? Put me on retainer? Have me defend your assassins and your dirty cops?”

“Eventually, I believe that we may have some cases that would be appropriate for your skills. But first, I have in mind something a little more involved.” Wesley leans forward. “I’ve seen your transcripts from Columbia. You were apparently an accomplished debater, quite capable of convincing a jury of your peers that the sky was green, if you wanted. So, Mr Nelson, you’re going to put those skills to use. You’re going to convince Mr Urich that everything is fine, that you were wrong, that Wilson Fisk is a good man, a man this city needs. And then you’re going to spread the gospel to everyone who’s been infected with this…negative point of view.”

_This city needs me,_ she'd said. Mattie’s the one who’s brave. Mattie’s the one who can stand up to these people. She’d have already punched Wesley in the face by now.

He can’t let her down.

“No,” he says.

“I don’t think you appreciate your position, Mr Nelson.”

“You’re going to shoot me if I don’t agree? Go ahead.” Foggy wishes his heart wasn't pounding.

“No, Mr Nelson. I’m not going to shoot you. Not tonight. No, I believe we’ll go to Miss Murdock first. It might be some time before we’re done with her, but I’ll be sure that you receive the ME’s report, just to be sure you know…exactly what we did to her. Then your assistant, Miss Page. Then Mr Urich. Then your sister, your parents, your friends, everyone you’ve ever cared about. And when we’re through, then…we’ll come for you.”

It should scare Foggy. He should be scared that these powerful men are threatening his loved ones, and Wesley _does_ scare him. But not the way he thinks. _Mattie will kill you all if she finds out what you’ve done, what you’re going to do. She’ll kill you all if you go after her._

He’s not afraid of James Wesley killing Mattie. He’s afraid of Mattie killing Wesley.

A cell phone rings, loud in the silent room, and Wesley glances away, and Foggy lunges for the gun. _Stop him before he gets to Mattie. Stop him from turning her into a killer._ He holds the gun between his hands.

Mattie still makes fun of him for dating Rachel in junior year. Rachel, who brought him to a gun range as a date. Rachel, who taught him how to hold a gun, how to aim, how to shoot. He hears her voice, feels her hands on his, positioning his hands correctly.

“Do you really think I would put a loaded gun on the table where you could reach it?” says Wesley.

Without a word, Foggy pulls back the safety and pulls the trigger.

_Mattie, smiling on a beach in Cape Cod._

Wesley’s shoulder explodes in red. Foggy pulls the trigger again.

_Mattie, a scarf around her eyes and her hands dripping blood._

Again.

_Mattie, curled against his side in bed._

Again.

_Mattie, flipping out of Stick’s hold._

Again.

_Mattie, saying “I love you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be honest, I've had this planned since midway through writing The One Constant. I knew if I got this far, this is how it would play out. So...thanks, guys, for sticking with me through all these months of stories, and hope you enjoy the last two chapters!


	12. Leverage

Mattie’s side is aching as she lands on the rooftop. Inwardly, she curses the big guy, but instantly regrets it. The big guy - Melvin - she suspects he doesn’t know how strong he is. She’s certain he wasn’t _trying_ to kill her, just trying to get her out. Trying to obey Fisk’s orders. Trying to keep Betsy safe.

Mattie hopes that Betsy cares as much for Melvin as he does for her.

_This is what we do. Protect the ones we love._

Except that the one she loves wants nothing to do with her. She’d always known this was coming, but she’d let herself believe that a ring and a promise meant something, that it meant he was different.

She’s just imagining his heartbeat in the apartment. She’s going to open the door, and the apartment will be empty, and her heart will break all over again.

When she opens the door, she can smell him. The scent of him, the one that doesn’t change no matter what soap he uses, overlaid with…whiskey, and vomit, and tears, and gunpowder, and chemicals. And fear.

“Foggy?”

“Hey,” he says. It’s an empty syllable.

“Are you -“ _Are you back? Have you come home?_ But something’s wrong, it’s all wrong.

He takes a drink of whiskey; there’s an open bottle on the floor next to his foot. She comes down the stairs, slipping the mask off.

“Are you OK?” she says quietly. She stands in front of him, but he doesn’t react.

“I get it now,” he says, and there’s a hollow quality to his voice that terrifies her.

“Get what?”

“Why you do it. I didn’t before. I thought…” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. But I get it now. It’s not the truth and justice part that’s really important. I mean, I know it’s important, but it’s not…It’s because you love this place, isn’t it? I mean, _really_ love it. And when you love something, you’re willing to fight like hell to protect it.”

She crouches down, and puts her hand on his knee. Lightly, gingerly, testing the waters.

“Yeah,” she whispers.

He grabs her hand, holding it tight.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “I didn’t know what that felt like.”

Everything around her is blaring alarms, and she forces herself to ask the next question.

“Foggy…what happened?”

“I did something, Mattie.” There are tears running down his face, now. “I can’t -“

She lurches forward, wrapping her arms around him, and he buries his face against her neck. He takes several shaky breaths, and then she hears him whisper, “I killed him.”

She thinks she stops breathing.

“Foggy, what did you say?” She pushes herself back, holding him by the shoulders.

“I killed him.”

“Who…who did you kill?”

“James Wesley. Fisk’s man. I couldn’t let him - he…” He’s shaking under her hands.

“Breathe, sweetheart, OK?” He nods, and takes some deep breaths. “Can you start at the beginning?”

“Yeah, uh, I was at the office, and he was waiting on the sidewalk, and he - must’ve tasered me, I think, because I just - wound up on the ground, then he had a cloth, and I passed out -“

“Slow down, sweetheart,” she says softly, because he’s talking too fast, words spilling out of him. “What happened next?”

“I, uh, woke up, and we were in…I don’t know, some sort of warehouse, I think, and he was there, and he knew that I’d been to see Fisk’s mother, and he said Fisk would…”

“Fisk would kill you,” she says, her stomach knotting.

“Probably. Not in so many words. He wanted me to convince you…all of you, that Fisk wasn’t a threat.” His voice drops to a whisper, Mattie’s not even sure if anyone other than she would have been able to hear it. “He said he’d kill you, and Karen, and Ben, and my sister, and my parents, if I didn’t.”

She nods. “Then what?”

“He had a gun…on the table. Probably didn’t think I could reach it. But his phone went off, and I managed to get it and I…”

“Shot him.”

He nods, and she pulls him to her again, holding him tight.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispers. “He kidnapped you, he assaulted you, he threatened you, you were acting in self-defense. It is _not_ your fault.”

“I should go to the cops,” he says.

“No, you can’t do that!” She presses her forehead to his. “Fisk owns the cops, if you turn yourself in, you will never make it out of that station alive.”

He nods miserably.

“Is there any evidence? Any way they can connect you to this?”

He shakes his head. “I tried to wipe down the table, I tossed the gun in the river…there might be DNA in the car…”

“They’d have to have a sample from you to match it.”

He slumps forward against her.

“What are we going to do?” he whispers.

She closes her eyes against the tears that are coming.

“You’re going to take a shower. Then we’re going to go to bed. And then tomorrow we’re going to find a way to take down Fisk so he can never hurt anyone ever again.”

“That simple, huh?”

“Yeah. That simple. Find a way to move forward.”

While Foggy showers, Mattie sits on the floor of the living room with her back against the armchair and drinks from the bottle of whiskey.

_This is my fault. I dragged Foggy into this. I turned him into me._

She almost throws up in the kitchen sink.

_I’m sorry, Foggy, I’m so, so sorry._

She can’t say it, not when he steps out of the shower and she slips past him to step under the water herself. Not when she slides into bed next to him. Not when she presses close to him and listens to his heartbeat.

It’s a terrible night. Foggy has nightmares, and it’s the reverse of how their relationship has been, her waking him up and holding him and telling him that she’s there, he’s safe. She doesn’t let herself sleep, half-expecting Wilson Fisk to break down their door at any minute. She wishes she still had Stick’s eskrima batons, and remembers that Melvin had said he’d make her a pair.

_Really hope you can work fast, Melvin._

In the morning, she offers to call Karen and tell her that they won’t be coming in, but Foggy shakes his head.

“Better to keep busy, right?” he says.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Halfway to the office, he stops and grabs her hard.

“We need to warn Ben,” he says, and she can tell he’s close to panicking.

“What?” 

“Wesley thought Ben was with me when I went to see Fisk’s mother. If Fisk finds out -“

“Why would he think _Ben_ was…” She stops. “Ben’s black, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

She nods. “And racist old white people can’t tell them apart. Got it, I’m with you. We should warn Brett too, just in case.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“I’ll go see Ben tonight. ‘Least then we won’t have to explain how we know he’s in danger.”

“Thanks.”

“Want me to stop by Brett too?”

“No, I’ll call him. I’ll tell him…something.”

She puts her hand on his face. “Everything’s going to be OK.”

He doesn’t try lying to her that he agrees. Instead, he takes her hand and wraps it around his elbow, and they start walking.

“I thought of something last night,” she says. “About…” She hesitates.

“Wesley.”

“Yeah. And how he said he’d come after me, all of us. Using us against you.”

“Yeah, classic supervillain move,” he says, trying to sound light. He fails miserably.

“Well, I met a guy last night. He makes Fisk’s armor, the lining he wears in his suits.”

“The what?”

_Oh. Right. We were fighting before I could tell him about that._

“Uh, Fisk has an armored lining to his suits. Knifeproof, at the very least. This guy I found, he’s the one who makes it, but it’s only because Fisk threatened his…someone he cares about.”

“Yeah, so Fisk is an asshole, what else is new?”

“Well, I was thinking, you know, Fisk spent a long time out of the spotlight with not even a peep about him, and that kind of power means that he has a lot of leverage over a lot of people. And I’m willing to bet that a lot of that leverage was -“

“Made up of people.”

She tightens her hand on his arm. “Everyone’s got someone they’ll fight for.”

“So how does that help us?”

“Well, we keep trying to find Healy, and we’re two steps behind on that. But what if he’s got someone?”

“You think that someone might be able to lead us to him?”

“I think it’s worth a shot. And what about Blake? He _has_ to know that Fisk’s going to take him out sooner or later, so why’s _he_ playing along?”

“You think there’s someone he’s got, too?”

Mattie tries to imagine Blake being affectionate towards anyone.

“Dunno. We should ask Brett.”

Foggy texts Brett to warn him about Fisk, and to ask for background on Blake and Healy, as they climb the stairs to the office. Karen is already in the office, and she stops as they come through the door.

“You’re back,” she says, and Mattie thinks she hears a smile.

“Yeah. We’re back,” Mattie says.

The morning is a tough slog. Karen tells them about her conversations with Ben, how she thinks he’s still open to following the story, “but he’s got a lot on his plate, and Ellison, his editor -“

“Wait, Ben thought Fisk had someone working for him at the _Bulletin_ , didn’t he?” says Foggy.

“Yeah. He’s not sure who.”

Foggy nods, and Mattie rolls her shoulders against the chill that ran up her spine. Warning Ben suddenly became a lot more urgent.

“Ugh!” Foggy says a little while later, “this whole thing is hopeless without the financial records!”

“Yeah, well, unless we get some leverage on Owlsley, that’s not likely to happen,” says Mattie. They’re in the conference room, Karen’s gone to get lunch for the three of them (insisted, despite her crutches).

“Not necessarily,” says Foggy.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Landman & Zack would have access to a lot of those records.”

“Protected under privilege.”

“What if we could convince one of their team to show us those records?”

“You’re not calling Marci.”

“She’ll listen to me.”

“No, the Marci we knew two years ago would listen to you. The one with the expense account?”

“She’s still Marci.” Foggy’s heart is pounding, and his hands are shaking, even though they’re being perfectly civil. “I need everything you have on Fisk and Owlsley.”

Mattie sighs and goes to load up a USB.

“I’m gonna need hard copies!” Foggy calls.

Mattie rolls her eyes and starts printing.

She’s somewhere around the fiftieth page when she realizes that Foggy’s heartbeat hasn’t slowed down, and she can smell his fear, filling the office, and hear his shallow breaths. She rushes into the conference room, and finds him doubled over in his chair. She runs around to face him, crouching in front of him.

“Breathe, breathe, sweetheart…” she murmurs. She pulls his hands from where he’s clasping his head, and gently cradles his face with her own. “In…Out…In…Out…” She gently guides his breathing until he starts listening to her, following her instructions. When his breathing has evened out, she slides her hands down, taking his hands in hers. “OK, I need you to focus on me. In…Out…Feel my hands. Focus on that. You feel them?”

“Yeah,” he manages.

“Good. Now open your eyes and tell me what you see.”

“I see you.”

“Good. Hold onto that. Now tell me one thing you can hear.”

“The printer.”

“Good. Now what can you smell?”

He breathes deep. “You. Your shampoo, I think.” He huffs a little chuckle. “You always smell good. Even when you’re sweaty and gross.”

“Thanks. And what can you taste?”

He pauses. “I don’t know. Me? Saliva?” And she grins, because that sounds like him, all right. “What do I taste like?”

“Usually what you just ate,” she says honestly. “But there’s something…that’s just you.” His heartrate is down, and the shaking has stopped. He squeezes her hands in his.

“Thanks, kitten.”

She wraps her arms around him.

“It’ll get easier,” she lies. She doesn’t know. She still thinks she can smell Nobu’s body burning, sometimes.

“Maybe it shouldn’t,” he says against her shoulder. She shakes her head.

“It’s not your fault. Nothing that happened is your fault.” 

If she can convince him that it isn’t his fault, maybe then it isn’t hers.

“Everything OK?” comes Karen’s voice. Mattie hadn’t even noticed her coming in.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Mattie says, pulling away from Foggy, who nods.

“Yeah, just…normal…stuff.”

Karen hums a skeptical assent. “I have Chinese food.”

“I think I love you,” Mattie says.

And Foggy manages to pretend to be offended, so the day isn’t a total loss.

Tracking down Ben is harder than Mattie anticipated. He’s not at the _Bulletin_ offices, he’s not at home, and Mattie eventually resorts to crouching on a rooftop and opening her hearing to everything that Hell’s Kitchen has to offer. She hears Ben’s voice, and takes off after it.

“You like making an entrance, don’t you?” Ben deadpans as she lands in front of him.

“I’m here to warn you,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“You’re still working on the Fisk story. About his mother.”

Ben takes a tiny breath, a hesitation that speaks volumes.

“Got nothing I can print yet,” he says.

“But it’s a story.”

“Sure.” Ben sighs. “There’s a guy who knew Rigoletto back in the day. Relocated to Florida. Just waiting to hear back. After that…I’ll see if I can shake loose any other sources.”

“Fisk knows someone went to talk with his mother. Word is that he thinks it was you.”

“Now, why would he think that?” 

“Because Fisk’s contact at the _Bulletin_ knows you’re gunning for him. They might not know what exactly you’re up to but…they’re keeping an eye out.”

“And you…what’s your angle on this?”

“I just want you to keep your head down, until this is over.”

“My head’s fine where it’s at.”

“Oh, yeah? Vladimir Ranskahov’s brother probably thought the same.”

“Point taken.”

Mattie turns to leave.

“Union Allied,” Ben says. “That woman you saved that night? She’s a good kid. Still believes you’re a hero, despite what everybody’s saying.”

“And you?”

“I’ve got a bullet in my arm.”

“I didn’t put it there.”

Ben pauses, and Mattie can hear her heart beating.

“I believe you,” he says. “There are a lot of good people whose lives are depending on that.”

“Whether I did, or whether you believe me?”

Ben chuckles.

“Both.”

She steps in close. “People like them,” she says, “are why I do this.” Ben nods. “Take care of yourself.” She smiles. “It’s cold, you should get yourself a better coat.”

“How about you get yourself a better outfit, you gonna keep running around out there?”

“I’m working on it. Watch your back, Ben. Fisk is an animal, and we’re backing him into a corner.”

She runs down an alley, hidden in shadows before he can respond.

When Mattie gets home, Foggy reports on his meeting with Marci. He thinks it went well; she was impressed by the documents Mattie had printed out, and said she’d copy Owsley’s files for Foggy.

“That’s…great,” Mattie says. She wants to kiss him. She holds herself back.

“Yeah,” he says dully. “Hopefully it pans out.”

There are more nightmares, more panic attacks. Mattie talks him through them. Somewhere around three in the morning, he asks, “Did Stick teach you this?”

“Yeah,” she says. She’s not sure what else she can say.

“This part of his training?” “Training” has an edge to it she doesn’t like.

“Stick…what he taught me…it wasn’t just fighting, it was…he taught me that my blindness wasn’t a disability, that sight was a distraction. He helped me understand everything I could do.”

“But he hurt you.” His heartbeat is strong, now, he’s not panicking.

“I owe him a lot more than that.”

“No,” he says. “You don’t.”

Neither of them sleep much.

Brett comes by the office in the morning; he’s been changed to night shifts. He tells them what he dug up on Healy and Blake.

“Clemons got this -“ he starts.

“He knows what you were doing?” Mattie says, because she’s becoming paranoid these days.

“Relax, Murdock, he’s one of the good ones. Bet my life on it.”

“You might be,” she says.

“I trust him,” he says, enunciating every word. “Now, you wanna hear what we’ve got?”

The rundown: Blake has no-one. His parents divorced when he was a child, and his father, according to Clemons’ search, lives an unremarkable life in Ohio, while his mother lives in New Jersey. Neither Clemons nor Brett can remember Blake referring to either of them with affection. The only person he’d ever expressed any feelings for was Hoffman, his childhood best friend.

John Healy, on the other hand, has two children. Alvin and Elton, both born to the same mother, who Healy never married. Healy’s been paying child support, but has never had custody or visitation rights.

“Where do they go to school?” Mattie asks.

“Uh…PS 212,” Brett says, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Mattie presses her lips together.

“Can you get us the police surveillance for the streets around there?”

“Do I want to ask?”

Mattie crosses her arms.

“I want to know if Healy’s been checking up on them. Recently.”

Brett sighs. “I’ll probably need Clemons to authorize it.”

“If you trust him, do it.” She can hear Brett’s hesitation. “What?”

“Should I bring him in on this?”

Mattie turns her head away, then back, a parody of looking away.

“He’ll be safer if he doesn’t know. If he never drops Fisk’s name,” she says.

Brett nods. “I don’t like lying to the people I work with. Some of them are the good guys.”

“That’s fair,” says Foggy, coming into Mattie’s office behind Brett. “But the question is really what’s more likely to keep them alive.”

Brett turns his head to look at Foggy.

“You really think that?” he says.

“Yeah. I do.” Every word has the weight of mortality. Brett nods in agreement.

“I’ll be careful.”

“You better be,” Mattie says.

“Seriously,” Foggy says quietly. “Be careful, man.” 

They can’t say anything more.

Later, in the evening, Karen gets a call from Ben. He’s been fired from the _Bulletin_.

“He’s going to start a blog,” says Karen, all optimism, trying to hide her fear. “He said he’s going to post the story tonight. About Fisk.”

“Wait, he tried to submit the Fisk story to Ellison?” says Foggy.

“Yeah. Ellison told him it was shit. And then he fired him. Ben’s pretty sure he was the one taking money from Fisk.”

There’s a terrible moment, then Foggy grabs Mattie and pushes her backwards into her office, kicking the door shut behind her.

“You have to go to Ben,” he says. “If Ellison knows, then Fisk knows, and Wesley…” He chokes, once. “Mattie, I’ve never asked you to do anything in the mask. But I need you to do this.”

She nods.

“What’ll you tell Karen?” she says.

“I…Leave that to me, I’ll think of something. But you need to go. Now.” He opens her office door and pushes her out.

“What’s going on?” says Karen.

“I just…need to go,” Mattie stammers.

“Are you -“

“She’s fine. Just…personal stuff,” says Foggy behind her as she strides towards the door. She breaks into a run as she goes up the stairs. She sprints over the rooftops, thankful that she at least decided to wear pants today, not a skirt and heels. Then it’s home and into the suit, and back out to the rooftops to Ben’s apartment.

There are three SUVs parked outside of his building, she notes as her spine prickles. The security detail are bored, inattentive. She cocks an ear, and hears Ben’s voice.

“I wrote a lot of stories in my years pushing ink,” he’s saying. “You know how many times people have threatened me…get me to keep my mouth shut?”

“But this is my mother that you brought into this, Mr Urich,” comes Fisk’s voice. Mattie lightly springs down the wall, landing on a window sill. “My mother! So I am not here to threaten you. I’m here to kill you.”

Mattie can hear a scuffle, and there’s not enough time to try to get the window open, so she just kicks it as hard as she can, swinging herself through the broken glass. Fisk has Ben on the ground, choking him, and she wraps an arm around Fisk’s throat, cutting off his air. Fisk roars and throws her off, slamming her into the bookcase. He turns on her, and that’s fine, because he’s not choking Ben anymore.

“Run!” she manages before Fisk hits her across the face, and Ben runs. She scrabbles on the ground, and grabs a fallen book (hardcover, heavy), and uses it to block Fisk’s fist. He grunts and kicks at her, but she’s scrambling up, dropping the book, grabbing the shelf above her, and using the leverage to kick up with both feet. Fisk takes them in the chest and stumbles back as she completes the flip, landing on her feet. She pauses, listening to Ben running down the stairs. She smiles and cocks her head.

“That all you’ve got?” she says.

He rushes at her, and she steps sideways, taking off after Ben. Fisk grabs her around the waist and slams her against the open doorframe, his shoulder painfully hitting her breasts, and she swings an elbow into his face, breaking his grip. She jumps backwards, leaping over the railing of the stairs, parkouring down the central well and landing just as Ben makes it to the ground floor.

“Fisk’s men are out front,” she says.

“This way,” Ben says, and they run out the back, into an alley stinking of garbage and urine. They run to the mouth, and Mattie throws her arm out to stop Ben, but there’s no-one around. She tells Ben to follow her, and they find another alley a block over. She pushes Ben out of sight behind a dumpster while she listens to Fisk bellowing “Where did they go?” and the sounds of Ben’s apartment being trashed.

“They’re destroying your computer,” she says. “Trying to find everything you have on Fisk.”

“Good thing I saved it to the cloud,” Ben says. His voice is hoarse, but he still has that wry quality. “Guess she was right about you,” he says, seemingly apropos of nothing.

“Who?”

“Karen. The woman you helped with the Union Allied case.”

“I’m not a hero.”

Ben shrugs. “Guess that depends on your definition.” He makes to step out into the alley, but Mattie holds out a hand.

“Wait until they’ve gone.”

“How would you know?”

She smiles. “I’ve got very good ears.”

It’s half an hour before she hears the SUVs pull away. She relaxes and nods to Ben.

“You have somewhere to go? Someone you trust?” she says.

“Sure.” He starts moving down the alley towards the street. “They leave anyone?” he says, nodding toward his building.

“No.”

“Good. ‘Cause I’m gonna need my wallet.”

She grins, but it fades as Ben’s heart suddenly starts pounding.

“They’ll be looking for me, won’t they?” he says.

“Probably.”

He steps up to her. “My wife, she’s in Metro General. If they know about her -“

“I’ll keep an eye on her. Until you can check her out.”

He nods. “Thank you.”

She steps back into the alley, and jumps onto a dumpster, running along the edge until she flings herself at a fire escape, climbing up to the roofs.

When she’s on the roof of Metro General, she pulls out her burner and calls Foggy.

“He’s OK,” she says.

There’s a pause. “Thank you,” he says.

“I’m at Metro General. Ben’s worried they’ll come after his wife.”

“Shit.”

“Could you…bring me a change of clothes?”

He chuckles. “Didn’t think this one through, did you?”

“It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment plan. But I’m a little stuck if I’m in the mask.”

“Sure. Where are you?”

“On the roof.”

“I’ll be there in a few.”

He brings up a gym bag with her jeans and a hoodie, and a travel cup full of coffee. Once she’s changed, he holds out her glasses, her ring, her phone, and her cane. All the things that make her Mattie Murdock, rather than the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She smiles as she puts them on. They find Doris Urich’s room, and settle down in the waiting area nearby. Visiting hours are over in Doris’ ward, but the hospital is still active, and as long as they don’t try to get in to see the patients, no-one bothers them.

Karen calls Foggy to tell them that Ben has been attacked, and is now holed up in her apartment along with her and Elena. Foggy spins a story about the woman in the mask telling them to look after Doris.

“We should tell her,” Foggy says after he hangs up. “She already knows something’s off. We keep lying to her, she’s going to come up with the wrong conclusion. Again.”

“It’ll just put her in danger.”

“She’s already in danger. Which, I might add, is of her own volition. Unlike this. And what she doesn’t know might get her killed.”

Mattie doesn’t say anything. She just tucks her arm around Foggy’s and leans her head on his shoulder.

Shortly after, she hears someone asking at reception for Doris Urich. She pokes Foggy and nods towards the reception desk, then freezes. She recognizes the heartbeat, the smell of smoke and ash clinging to the woman like perfume.

Mary.

She drags Foggy into the handicapped restroom and spills in a rush that the pyrokinetic assassin Fisk had tried to have kill her is now sitting in the waiting area, waiting for Ben to show up.

“What do we do?” Foggy says.

“I don’t know!” Mattie says. “I could - I don’t know - try to knock her out?”

“In the middle of the hospital? There are people everywhere! And she’d see you coming, she’d find out who you are.”

“I could do it in the mask.”

“How far do you think you’d get before somebody called the cops?”

She leans back against the wall, and he leans on the sink. They’re both breathing hard.

“We need to get Doris out of here,” she says.

“I’ll call Ben, see if he can get her discharged without being here.”

“OK.”

“What about Mary?”

She shakes her head, grasping at straws. She wrinkles her nose at the scent of bathroom cleaner.

“She has to pee sometime, doesn’t she?” she says.

“Seriously? This is what we’re banking on?”

“Everybody does,” she says, sounding very reasonable. 

Foggy sighs. “Can you tell? When she’ll need to?”

“Yeah. If I concentrate.”

“OK. I’ll call Ben, see if we can set something up.”

They’ll need to wait until the hospital administrator gets in at eight; Ben is sure he can convince her to discharge Doris into her sister’s care. Mattie cocks an ear to Mary, who is sitting still as stone in the waiting area. She’s not drinking anything. Mattie rolls her eyes and sits across from her, drinking a coffee that she tries to make look as appealing as possible.

They wait.

Mary gets a coffee around six thirty. It’s a big one. Mattie sighs in relief.

Foggy snags the administrator, Benson, when she comes in at eight. Mattie can hear him calling Ben, putting him on the phone with Benson, making her agree to release Doris. Mary hasn’t moved since she finished her coffee.

Doris’ sister calls Foggy at 8:45 and tells him she’s downstairs. He tells her to wait, and she doesn’t sound surprised. Foggy leans over and whispers in Mattie’s ear.

“When?”

“Give her about fifteen, twenty minutes. We’re almost there.”

At 9:05, Mary gets up and heads to the restroom. Mattie nods to Foggy, and follows her into the restroom. She hears Foggy calling Doris’ sister as she walks down the hall and pushes open the door. Mary is in a stall in the middle of the row, so Mattie steps into the one next to her, leaving the door unlocked. She hears Mary finish, and unlock her door. Mattie folds up her cane, holding the bundle in her hand, and flips up her hood, shielding her face. Mary steps out, and Mattie does at the same time, swinging up with her folded-up cane into Mary’s chin before Mary can even register that she’s being attacked. She follows up by grabbing Mary’s hair and slamming her head into the metal wall of the stall. Mary’s unconscious before Mattie gently lowers her to the floor.

With a flick of her wrist, Mattie unfolds her cane.

“Uh, I think there’s someone passed out in the ladies’ room,” she says at the nurses’ station, putting on her best confused-blind-girl act. “I tripped over her, I think I kicked her by accident, she’s still breathing, but I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

The nurse goes to investigate, then there’s a flurry of security and nurses converging on the restroom. They ask Mattie what she saw (“Uh, nothing?”). All the while, Doris’ sister comes up to the floor, and she and Foggy gently escort Doris out to the waiting car.

Foggy comes back upstairs and they slip out unnoticed, ghosts in the morning chill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Luke Cage Day! Hope everyone has a fantastic binge-watch, and I'll see you on the other side for the last chapter!


	13. The Tiger

Ben, Karen, and Brett are waiting for them in the conference room.

“Got a call from Doris’ sister,” Ben says. “Thanks for taking care of that.”

“Just glad we could help,” Foggy says.  


 “Got those surveillance videos you asked for,” Brett says. “And Ben let me know what happened last night.”

“So the question becomes,” Ben says, “do we post or not?”

There’s an uncomfortable shifting around the room.

“What if we did?” says Karen. “What…”

“Ben’d be putting himself at risk,” says Mattie. “Fisk could try to kill him again, or he could just sue him for libel. Discredit him, too, if he’s got the _Bulletin_ in his pocket.”

“Have to find me first,” says Ben dryly. “Can’t kill someone you can’t find. Can’t serve papers to them, either.”

“Do you _want_ to post?” says Foggy.

Ben sighs. “I’ve always been a contrary son of a bitch. Man tries to kill you over a story, tells me that it’s a story worth telling.”

“It _is_ worth telling,” Karen says. “Just not sure it’s worth your life.”

“I’m with her,” says Brett.

“What if…what if we hold off, just for a little while?” says Foggy. “We’ve got other angles, other ways to attack Fisk that wouldn’t necessarily expose us the same way. What if we wait to post until we’ve got those lined up, and hit him at the same time?”

“We might even be able to get you some more sources, corroborate what you already have,” says Mattie.

Ben nods.

“He just nodded,” Foggy says, and the corner of Mattie’s mouth turns up.

“Sorry,” Ben says. He takes a deep breath. “Right. So, what are these other angles?”

Karen smiles and brightly tells him about their investigations into Owlsley and Healy.

“If we find Healy, he can testify that Fisk hired him as a hitman,” Karen says.

“Even if you can convince him, he’s only been peripheral to Fisk’s activities,” observes Ben.

“Prohaszka was killed so the Russians could expand their operation. Linking Fisk to that will demonstrate his relationship with organized crime,” says Mattie.

“And Blake was to cover up Fisk’s involvement with the bombings,” says Karen.

“Among other things,” says Brett.

“So linking Fisk to _that_ -“

“Will only put Fisk away.” Ben leans forward. “If you get _Blake_ , he’s the one who could blow the whole thing wide open. Owlsley, the cops, hell, maybe even the political corruption.”

“Blake’s behind layers of security. And his asshole lawyer has to vet anyone who goes in to see him,” says Foggy.

“Sounds personal,” says Ben, narrowing his eyes at Foggy.

“He was a year ahead of us in law school. Mattie dated him.”

“For, like, two seconds,” says Mattie quickly.

“Healy could implicate Blake,” says Brett. “We could use that as leverage.”

Mattie shakes her head. “As long as Larry’s on Fisk’s payroll, he’ll never let Blake say a damn word.”

At least everyone agrees that the first step is finding John Healy.

Brett gave them days’ worth of surveillance video around Healy’s kids’ school, “for your viewing pleasure.”

“Well, I’m out,” says Mattie.

“I hate you sometimes,” Foggy says.

“Liar,” she mutters, out of Karen’s hearing.

“Creep.”

Karen and Elena volunteer to go through the videos, leaving Foggy free to meet with Marci. He decides against taking her to Josie’s again, so he meets her at Luke’s. Luke, at least, can mix a vodka martini. Foggy doesn’t miss Marci eyeing Luke with open appreciation, either.

“Definitely appreciate the change of venue,” she says, practically licking her lips as she watches Luke shaking the cocktail. Luke grins knowingly as he pours out the drink, and drops an olive in.

“On the house,” he says. “It’s ladies’ night.”

Marci practically purrs.

When she tears herself away from ogling Luke, she slips a thick file out of her bag.

“This was as much as I could get today,” she says. “There are some real estate records, some investment portfolios, and some tax records.”

Foggy flips through the documents. “This is amazing, Marce. We…can’t thank you enough.”

“Well, you can thank me once you nail Fisk and Owlsley.” She purses her lips. “Owlsley’s been moving funds a lot more frequently the past few days. Something’s got him riled up.”

“Fisk planning something?”

“I wouldn’t know.” She shrugs. “I’ll get you some more in a few days. Can’t be pulling this every day.”

“How _are_ you getting these out of the office?”

She smiles, all teeth. “You’d be _amazed_ what an extra button undone can cover.”

Foggy remembers why Marci had terrified him, years ago.

Mattie devours Marci’s files voraciously, running them through her braille reader, dictating notes to her computer. It’s three days of work before Karen triumphantly calls them from her apartment.

“We found Healy,” she says. “Well, Elena found him. There’s a pattern.” Foggy puts her on speaker for Mattie’s benefit.

“OK, shoot.”

“Healy passes by the school just when the morning recess is happening. Doesn’t stop, doesn’t try to talk to the kids, just passes by. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, clockwork.”

“What time is the recess?” says Mattie.

“Between 10 and 10:30. Healy usually has someone with him. It seems to alternate between three or four different guys.”

“Fisk must have him locked down,” says Foggy.

“And part of the deal is that he gets to see his kids are OK,” Mattie says. “Good work, Karen.”

Foggy hangs up the phone.

“So what are you going to do now?” he says.

“Find out where Fisk has Healy stashed. And then see if I can convince our Mr Healy to do the right thing.”

Foggy nods, and notices that his hands are shaking again. Mattie reaches over and takes them in hers.

“Breathe, sweetheart,” she says softly. He breathes the way she taught him, and the shaking stops. She runs her hand down his face.

“Sorry,” he says.

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

_I killed a man, how can you stand to even be in the same room as me?_

“Hey, hey,” she whispers, and he realizes that he’s starting to tear up. She brushes a tear away with her thumb. “It’s OK.”

“No, it’s not. It won’t be until we put Fisk away.”

She nods. “So let’s do that.”

The next morning, Mattie dresses in a hoodie and jeans and heads out to find Healy. Karen raises her eyebrows when she sees Foggy come in alone.

“Mattie OK?” she says.

“Yeah, she’s…” He sighs. “OK, you know I can’t tell you anything, so I’m not going to lie to you. But it’s important. For the case.”

Karen nods. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For not treating me like an idiot.”

He nods and turns to go into his office.

“Foggy?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever…this is, with Mattie? You can trust me.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Mattie comes in around noon, showered and dressed impeccably in her suit. She’s smiling, wolfish, and Foggy starts to hope. She closes the door to his office and throws herself into the chair opposite his desk, picking up the stegosaurus and turning it in her hand.

“You found Healy,” he says.

“I got one better.”

“OK…?”

“Fisk isn’t the one who has Healy on lockdown. Owlsley is.”

“How does that change anything?”

“Because Owlsley has Healy on lockdown as a safety in case Fisk comes after him.”

“Why would Fisk…” He trails off as her smile gets wider.

“I don’t know the details,” she says. “But I’m betting Owlsley’s been doing something he doesn’t want Fisk to know about.”

“You think he’s skimming?”

“More than likely. I have the feeling Owlsley is a little fuzzy on the concept of ‘other people’s money.’” She punctuates it by gesturing with the stegosaurus’ head.

“We have the financial records.”

“Yup.” She sighs. “And we have until tonight to find out what Owlsley’s been up to.”

“Why tonight?”

“Because I’m going to have a talk with John Healy tonight.” She puts down the stegosaurus.

“We should tell Karen the truth,” Foggy says. “We’re going to have a really hard time explaining how we found out about this if we don’t.” He sees Mattie’s jaw working. “And I’m tired of lying to her.”

Mattie swallows, and then she nods. She takes a deep breath, and opens the door.

“Karen, could you come in here for a minute?”

Karen hobbles in and sits down on the chair Mattie just vacated. Mattie leans against the wall. Foggy glances at her. She shrugs.

“We found Healy,” Mattie says.

“ _Mattie_ found Healy,” Foggy corrects. They need to start this right.

“That’s great!” Karen says. “How?”

“I followed him after he swung by the school. He’s hiding in an abandoned theatre at 53rd and 10th.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Not yet.”

“Wait, how did _you_ follow him?”

“It’s…uh…complicated?”

Mattie’s going to tie herself into knots, Foggy knows, trying to work up to the big revelation.

“Easier if you just show her, kitten,” he says. He picks up one of his dinosaurs. “Catch.” He tosses it, and Mattie grabs it out of the air, her head not even turning. Foggy watches Karen’s face turn from vaguely impressed to outright shock.

“How did you do that?” she says. “Wait, can you see?”

“No,” says Mattie quickly. “It’s just…you remember I told you I wasn’t always blind?” Karen hums agreement. “I was blinded by a chemical spill when I was nine. But that wasn’t the only effect. Whatever was in those chemicals, they…enhanced my other senses.”

“Enhanced how?”

Foggy resists saying “world on fire.”

“They’re pretty much superpowers,” he says instead.

“They’re not superpowers,” says Mattie.

“So…your other senses? Hearing? Touch? Taste?” Karen’s brow is furrowed, trying to understand.

“Smell, too,” Mattie says helpfully.

“They’re all…”

“Extremely sensitive.”

“How sensitive?”

“I can hear your heart beating.”

_OK, sure, go for the big one._

Karen’s eyes widen, and she puts a hand on her chest, as if that could block the sound. 

“OK,” she says. “OK. So…you have…enhanced senses. And that let you follow Healy?”

“Yes,” Mattie says.

“And that’s how you’ve been boxing?”

“Boxing?” Foggy says.

“That’s, uh, that’s the other part we needed to tell you.” Mattie shifts her weight uncomfortably. “I haven’t been boxing. Not…formally, anyway.”

“What, you’re in a fight club or something?”

“Or something.”

Foggy rolls his eyes. “If you call fighting the criminal element of Hell’s Kitchen a fight club.”

He sees the realization start to dawn on Karen’s face.

“Most people just call it being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” says Mattie quietly.

Foggy’s holding his breath, watching Karen.

“You were there that night,” Karen says. “You saved my life.”

“Yeah,” Mattie says.

Karen’s huge eyes turn on Foggy.

“And you knew about this? This…” She gestures between the two of them. “This is what you’ve been hiding?”

“Yeah,” Foggy says.

Karen covers her mouth with her hand.

“Oh, my God,” she whispers. “This…” She visibly pulls herself together. “Suddenly, everything makes a lot more sense.”

“Yeah, we kind of figured it would,” says Foggy.

“I’m sorry, Karen,” Mattie says. “We trust you, we do, but we thought it would be best if no-one except for the two of us knew about it.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Because Mattie overheard something about Healy when she tracked him down,” says Foggy. He gives her the rundown of the Healy, Owlsley and Fisk situation.

“So we need to find some proof that Owlsley’s been skimming,” Foggy says.

“I think I’ve got a good start on the financial records, but I’m going to need help putting it all together,” says Mattie.

Karen nods. “OK, let’s do it. I’ll call Ben, he can help.”

So it’s back to the exciting world of financial records. At least they have a goal, now, and they start highlighting the records that don’t add up. Profit-loss that doesn’t change, even when properties disappear off asset lists. Accounts opening and closing. Tax deductions that aren’t reflected in quarterly summaries.

“I ever tell you my mom wanted me to be a butcher?” Foggy asks Ben.

“No,” Mattie says.

“What?” Ben says.

“Don’t encourage him.”

“I mean, at least cold cuts don’t make you want to gouge your eyes out,” Foggy says. “Why did I become a lawyer again?”

“To make lots of money,” Mattie says.

“That didn’t work out so good, did it?”

“Not so much.” Mattie leans in and kisses him lightly on the lips.

“You could be marrying a successful small business owner, you know -“ Foggy says. Karen’s laughing. “What?”

“Oh, it’s just this. It’s the way it should be,” Karen says.

“What, Foggy talking about cured meats?” says Mattie.

“Nelson and Murdock,” Karen says fondly. Ben glances at her, and then back at Mattie and Foggy.

“Got another one for you,” he says, holding out a highlighted sheet.

“How much is that?” Mattie says.

“Conservative estimate?” Karen says, flipping through the stack of documents they’ve set aside. “There’s at least fifteen million unaccounted for. And that’s just what we’ve found so far.”

“Jesus,” Foggy says. “Owlsley wasn’t screwing around.”

“Guess that answers the question,” Karen says. “How do you fight someone who owns everything?”

“Steal half of it,” Mattie says. “Think we’ve got enough to piss Fisk off?”

“I’d say so,” says Ben. “He’s not a man who likes to be played for a fool.” He sits back. “How’d you find out about Owlsley, anyway?”

Mattie’s mouth drops open guiltily, and Foggy tries to stammer something, but Karen cuts in smoothly.

“The woman in the mask. She found me this morning, on my way in. Told me where to start looking. She’s going to get John Healy tonight.”

“We should coordinate,” Foggy says. “Hit Owlsley the same time she’s going after Healy.”

“I can take Owlsley,” Ben says. “They already know I’m involved in this, and I’m used to dealing with people like him.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Mattie says.

“I’ll go with you,” Foggy says.

“Karen, can you call Brett, let him know what we’re up to?”

“Yeah, sure.” Karen pulls out her phone.

“I’ll call Silver & Brent,” Ben says.

“Say you want to talk about Nobu,” Mattie says.

“Who’s Nobu?”

“Yakuza. Fisk had him murdered. If anything will scare Owlsley, that will.”

Ben nods, and steps into the reception area to make the call. Foggy slips his hand over Mattie’s thigh and squeezes. She takes his hand and holds it tightly.

Ben tells Owlsley to meet them just inside of Central Park, and asks Karen if she knows how to contact the woman in the mask. Karen glances at Mattie and Foggy, then nods, and listens as Ben outlines what he’s going to say to Owlsley. Mattie smiles, listening, then makes her excuses to leave. Karen goes home, on standby to coordinate between their prongs of attack.

Ben and Foggy settle onto a bench in Central Park, watching the sun go down.

“How’s Doris doing?” Foggy asks.

“Good. Better than I was expecting. Her sister’s got a nice place in Queens. Even has a back yard.”

“You thinking of moving out there, when this is over?”

Ben looks up at the sky.

“Dunno. I might.” He shrugs. “Not like Hell’s Kitchen is the only place with news. And it’s only a subway ride away.”

“There he is.”

Owlsley is striding towards them, flanked by bodyguards. He’s shorter than Foggy was expecting.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it,” Owlsley snaps.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Ben says evenly. “I don’t think this is a conversation you want your men hearing.”

Owlsley glances over to his bodyguards, and waves them back to the SUV Foggy can see pulled up at the curb. He turns back to Ben and Foggy, huffing.

“Now what?” he says.

“Now, I’d like to ask you for comment on an article I’m writing. About the mismanagement of Wilson Fisk’s financial assets. And your involvement and personal benefit from it.”

Foggy has never seen the blood drain from someone’s face. Owlsley’s does, it’s obvious even under the yellow lamps lining the path.

“Bullshit,” Owlsley growls. “You were fired from the _Bulletin_ , no-one will print any crap you write.”

“ _Bulletin_ ’s not the only game in town. Jameson at the _Bugle_ ’s always open to something…sexy.” There’s a disdain in Ben’s voice on the last word. “And then you might have heard of a little something called the internet.”

Foggy wishes he had Mattie’s hearing, because he’s pretty sure Owlsley’s heart is pounding a mile a minute.

“You’re about to say that we have no evidence,” Ben continues relentlessly. “We have the financial records. We’ve found fifteen million dollars that you’ve squirrelled away, and I’m sure once Fisk starts digging, he’ll find even more. And you and I both know that making Wilson Fisk angry is a very dangerous thing.”

“So what? You want a piece of it? A little piece of the pie in your…enforced retirement?”

“I think you misunderstand me,” says Ben, and Foggy suddenly sees the cold fury that Ben has been carrying for the past few days under his calm exterior. “Wilson Fisk tried to kill me with his bare hands. In my own home. I want him brought down. So I’m giving you the opportunity to either help me, or I will set you up as bait and wait for him to come for you.”

“Fisk won’t hurt me,” Owlsley says, and Foggy knows, as sure as Mattie ever does, that he’s lying. “You think I don’t have my own backup plan?”

“You mean Healy?” Ben smiles. “Yeah, we know about him. Got a friend talking to him right now. She’s gonna explain to him exactly why whatever you promised him is going to go up in smoke.” Ben leans back. “Any way this goes, you’re going to be investigated. Your assets will be frozen. And whatever you promised Healy will never get to him. At least, that’s what she’s going to say. That, and once we publish, Fisk will know that Healy’s stabbed him in the back, too. And we know how well he reacts to that sort of thing.”

Owlsley tries to bluster something, but Ben cuts him off.

“So, your choice. You can take a walk with me, and this fine gentleman here, and go have a talk with some upstanding officers of the law I know about Wilson Fisk’s criminal activities. Or you can wait for me to publish, and spend the rest of your very short life looking over your shoulder. Your call.”

There’s no choice. Ben made sure of that.

Owlsley sends his bodyguards away, and walks with Ben and Foggy to a taxi stand. Once they’re on their way to the 15th, Owlsley looks at Foggy.

“Who’s this asshole, anyway?” he growls.

“My lawyer,” Ben says. “He’s willing to represent you. I’d recommend it, you’re going to need it.”

“I have lawyers.”

“Paid for by Fisk.” Owlsley has nothing to say to that. “You see how that might pose a problem?”

Owlsley stays silent the rest of the drive.

Brett is waiting for them at the intake desk. They let Owlsley go first, looking pointedly at him, and he says, clearly, “I’m here to make a statement.”

It’s a long night. After Owlsley and Ben have given their statements, Brett and Clemons tell them to wait while they call the feds. Foggy glances up to see John Healy standing at the desk.

“I need to speak with Sergeant Mahoney,” he says. He looks worse for wear, bleeding from above his eye, and a split lip. Foggy tells Ben and Owlsley that he’s stepping out for some air.

He slips into an alley across the street from the precinct, and pauses. He listens hard, then hears the scrape of boots on the fire escape above him.

“Hey, kitten,” he says to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. _Not a kitten. A tiger._

“Hey, sweetheart,” Mattie says, crouching one story up. “How’d it go?”

“Ben’s a pro. Yours?”

“Took a little convincing, but he’s here.”

“Yup, just saw him. You should go home, we’re probably going to be calling you in soon.”

She smiles, and slides down the ladder so that she’s hanging off it by one hand, just above him. She leans down and kisses him.

“See you soon, counselor,” she whispers.

When the feds arrive, Foggy makes a show of calling her and Karen, bringing them both in. They sit through Healy and Owlsley’s statements (Ben, on the other hand, just needed to file a report, which was passed on to the feds), negotiating immunity for their clients and protection for their children.

And all of a sudden, it’s over. Healy and Owlsley are both under indictment for lesser charges, but will not remain in custody. The feds will provide security until Fisk is arrested. Foggy, Mattie, and Karen are hustled out the door with the US Attorney’s thanks. Ben and Elena are waiting for them at the office with pastries and coffee.

“What do we do now?” says Karen.

“Watch the news,” says Ben. He smiles and leans over Karen’s laptop and presses a button. “And the article is…up.”

They toast the article with their coffee.

They decide to retreat to Karen’s apartment, which is the biggest, and has a proper TV with cable. Elena insists on cooking, so Mattie helps her, surprising Elena with how adept she is with a chef’s knife. By mid-afternoon, the reports are rolling in of arrests.

Ben gets a call, which he steps into the hall to take. His mouth is a tight line as he steps back inside a few minutes later.

“Everything all right?” Karen says.

“That was Ellison,” Ben says. “He wanted to apologize. The feds just arrested Caldwell in front of the whole staff.”

“So it wasn’t him?”

Ben shakes his head. “Said I could have my job back. If I wanted.”

“Do you?”

Ben smiles tightly. “Let’s…let me think about it…for a little while.”

The news is reporting that Blake is under arrest (although he’s still bedridden at the hospital). No word on whether his shitbag lawyer was arrested as well. Speaking of lawyers…

“Holy shit, they arrested Landman!” Foggy calls.

Mattie pokes her head out of the kitchen, listening to the TV.

“All the free bagels in the world couldn’t help him…” she says.

“We should call Marci.”

“Yeah, tell her to come over,” Karen says.

Marci picks up the phone on the first ring.

“You did it, Foggy Bear,” she says.

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Marce. Uh, we’re celebrating a little over at Karen’s if you want to join us?”

Marci pauses. “Is there booze?”

“There is booze.”

“I’ll come right over.”

She arrives with the news that not only was Parrish Landman arrested, but most of the partners at Landman & Zack.

“So, I think I’m out of a job. Thanks to you,” she says, mock-glaring at Foggy.

“I can put in a call to HC&B,” Mattie says. “See if they’re looking to hire. Hogarth would probably love to poach some of the L&Z staff.”

And finally, as the sun goes down: Wilson Fisk.

They’re eating the dinner Elena cooked, drinking Karen’s booze. Karen smiles and hugs Ben. Elena claps her hands and looks heavenward. Foggy glances over at Mattie, who looks solemn. He puts his arm around her and kisses her hair, feeling the familiar gnawing at his stomach.

_Doesn’t change what we had to do to get here._

She turns her head.

“We should get Brett over here,” she says quietly.

“Yeah.”

He calls Brett.

“Half the precinct just got arrested, so I’m on shift until I die, thanks to you,” says Brett.

“…Do you want to come over to Karen’s when you’re done?”

He can almost envision Brett’s expression, frowning at him.

“I’ll text you when I _finally_ get off,” Brett says.

“We’ll probably still be going.”

“Good work.”

“You too.”

Ben leaves early so he can head back to Queens, bidding them all a fond goodbye. They’re debating running out for more beer when the TV interrupts them.

“…what appears now to be some sort of firefight involving the FBI transport carrying Wilson Fisk…”

Foggy looks at Mattie. Her mouth is hanging open, she looks like she’s forgotten to breathe. _He’s_ forgotten to breathe.

“Jesus Christ,” says Marci. Elena says probably the same thing in Spanish.

“Is he -“ Karen starts, and the helicopter footage shows Fisk stepping out of the back of the transport truck. “Oh, my God, he’s going to get away. He can’t _do_ that, he -” Karen covers her mouth with her hands.

“We have to go,” Mattie says.

“Yeah, they’ll probably start blockading the streets,” Marci says.

“Right,” Foggy says, “let’s go.”

They rush out of the apartment with Karen and Elena telling them to stay safe, and take the elevator in stunned silence. Marci, surprising everyone with her generosity, tells Mattie and Foggy to take the first cab they flag down.

“You’re going to have more trouble getting back, just take it!” she says.

Mattie is wound so tight she’s going to explode, and Foggy knows exactly where she’s planning on aiming herself.

“You don’t have to do this,” Foggy says.

“Yeah. I do.” The lights moving against the cab flutter across her face, gold and shadow-dark.

“You heard what’s going on out there. You can’t go up against that in your black pajamas.”

“I won’t be.” She turns her face to him. “I need you to trust me.”

Foggy takes a long moment to look at her. She’s calm, the way battlefields are before the shooting starts.

“All right,” he says.

She changes into the suit and runs up the stairs, leaving him with his laptop to try to find news updates.

He’s had too much to drink, and it doesn’t help numb the panic that he’s fighting as he re-watches the footage of Fisk’s transport being shot up. His hands start shaking as he sees Fisk climb out.

_He’s coming for me. He knows about me. He’s going to kill me._

“Breathe,” he tells himself, imagining Mattie’s voice. He walks himself through the tricks she’s taught him.

_One thing I can feel._

He closes his eyes and runs his hand over the leather of the couch.

_One thing I can see._

He opens his eyes and focuses on the broken bedroom door.

_One thing I can hear._

He listens to the sirens wailing outside.

_One thing I can smell._

He pulls the cushion beside him to his nose, breathing in the musty fabric smell.

_One thing I can taste._

He runs his tongue around the inside of his mouth, tasting the residual beer.

He’s calmer now, feeling grounded. The news rolls on, Fisk has disappeared. The police shut down the streets around Hell’s Kitchen, start combing the neighborhood. Foggy hears the sirens go past every few minutes. Nobody mentions the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but whether that’s a good thing or bad, Foggy doesn’t know.

And then - 

“Authorities are confirming that Wilson Fisk has been returned to police custody, following intervention by a masked vigilante described as ‘a daredevil’…”

Three guesses who the daredevil is. 

He hears the roof door open, and looks up. She’s not wearing the black suit. This new suit is red, thicker, armor plating bulking out her shoulders and chest. And a helmet and mask.

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

“New suit,” he says, staring. She comes down the stairs, all coiled power and barely-restrained ferocity. “It’s a good look,” he manages. “The horns are a bit much.”

And the Devil smiles.

It goes straight to the primal, animal part of Foggy’s brain. An animal staring at a tiger, wondering if it should be considered beautiful or dangerous, and knowing that it can’t be one without the other. 

She reaches up to the back of her head and pulls off the helmet, tugging down the thin black cowl underneath.

“Melvin took the whole devil thing a bit literally,” she says, putting the helmet down on the stairs as she sits to unlace her boots. The joke doesn’t defuse the tension.

“You’re bleeding,” he points out as she tugs off her boots. She swipes at her nose with the back of her hand.

“Nah. It stopped a while ago.” She stands up, dropping her gloves next to her boots, and approaches him. _Slinks_ , more like. He raises a hand, brushing it up from her shoulder to her face.

“You did it,” he says.

“We did it. It’s over.” 

She breathes deep, breathing him in, smiling, and he leans in to kiss her. There’s a moment of perfect balance, almost tranquillity, and then she surges forward, devouring him, pushing him backwards. His back hits the doorframe, and her hands are tearing at his clothes, her teeth are nipping his lips, his throat. He sinks his hands into her hair, pulling her up for another kiss, matching her, fighting her. He pivots, and her back slams against the bedroom wall as he sucks at the skin under her jaw. Her hand tightens on his hair, and she’s pulling him back, then she pushes, and he stumbles back into the bed, sitting down. He’s lost his shirt, he’s not sure how that happened, but she’s stalking over, unclipping the fastenings on the suit, and he could really get used to the whole superhero-striptease thing. She straddles him as she finishes unbuckling the suit, and lets him pull it off her, the top half hanging around her waist as she pulls up the thin black underlayer she wears under the red suit. Her sports bra goes next, then she stands up, pulling the bottom half of the suit off with her underwear, and she’s naked, her wounds from Nobu still an angry red against her skin, and she’s perfect.

She drops to her knees, pulling his pants and boxers off, and he groans as she takes him in her mouth. He runs his hand over her hair as he stares at the sight of her, wondering why he deserves to have this. When he’s fully hard, she pulls off, and climbs onto his lap, waiting only for him to roll on a condom before she sinks onto him. He clings to her as she rides him, and adds to the list of Wilson Fisk’s crimes the fact that he tried to kill something so beautiful.

It’s not gentle. It’s not tender. It’s not how they usually make love, laughing or teasing or comforting or sensual. Her fingers claw at his hair, and he presses his into her hips. Their mouths crash together, inelegant and desperate. And when he comes underneath her, and she climbs off, rolling onto her back on the bed, he lies there, covered in sweat, and feels cleansed.

Once his brain comes back online, he stumbles to the bathroom to throw away the condom and take a leak. He turns off the lights as he emerges, and picks up the helmet from the stairs. He turns it in his hands, admiring the way the red lenses pick up the light. They must be terrifying, on a dark street. He can imagine a shadow falling over some miscreant, the horned silhouette blocking out the light. He hopes Fisk was afraid when he saw her.

Mattie’s resting with her eyes closed, the covers pulled up over her, when he comes into the bedroom. He kneels down and picks up the new suit, running it over his hands. It’s lighter than it looks.

He hears Mattie moving, and looks over his shoulder to see her reaching over to the bedside table, putting on her ring. She’s dropped her hair elastic on the table, and her hair is spilling over her shoulders.

“Why red?” he says.

“It’s red?” For a moment, he’s not sure if she’s joking, then she grins.

“Very funny.” He drops the suit and takes the mask with him as he goes to sit on the edge of the bed next to her legs. She sits up, wrapping the covers over her chest. She reaches out and brushes her hand over the mask sitting on his knees.

“So they can’t see you bleed,” she says quietly.

He covers her hand on the mask with his.

“It’s not over, is it? This…” He presses down on her hand and the mask. “This is the beginning, isn’t it?”

She nods. “Yes.” She swallows. “Even with Fisk gone, there’ll still be…”

“Men like him.”

She nods, and turns her head so her cheek is resting on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know this isn’t what you wanted.”

He looks down at the mask and their hands, clasped together.

“No, it’s not,” he says. “But I’m not the person who wanted all those things. Not anymore. You were right. We find a way to move forward.”

“And…moving forward? What _do_ you want?”

He runs his thumb over the back of her hand. “I want to be a lawyer. A good one. Who helps people. I want to fight the good fight, however we have to, and make sure that men like Wilson Fisk never have that kind of power again. And maybe…maybe try to balance the scales. Not that - I know I can’t…” He pauses, and she whispers his name. “But I want to try.” He takes her hand and presses it against his heart. “And I want _you_. So I’m gonna fight like hell to keep you alive, because I intend to spend the rest of my life with you.”

She smiles, and it’s watery, and there’s a tear creeping down her face that he brushes away before he kisses her.

His best friend. His lover. His partner.

His devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *deep breath* Whew. This turned out to be a much bigger undertaking than I anticipated, and I learned a lot as it all came together. Thanks, everyone, for coming with me, and rest assured that I have many more story ideas for these two!


End file.
